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WORKS    OF    PAUL   JANET. 

Member  of  the  French  Academy. 


FINAL  CAUSES.       With  Preface    by  Robert   Flint,   D.D.,   LL.D. 
From  Second  French  Edition,     i  vol.,  8vo $2.50 

THE  THEORY   OF   MORALS.      Translated  by  Mary  Chapman,  under 
the  supervision  of  President  Noah  Porter.     8vo  ....  $2.50 


FINAL    CAUSES. 


BY 


PAUL   JANET, 


MEMBER  or  THE  INSTITUTE,  PROFESSOR  AT  THE  FACULTE  DES  LETTRES  OP  PARIS. 


2rran0lat£t)  from  tfje  SecontJ  lEtiition  of  t|)e  jhencfj 

BY 

WILLIAM    AFFLECK,    B.D. 


amitJ)  Preface  lip 
EGBERT   FLINT,  D.D.  LL.D., 

PROFESSOR    OF     DIVINITY,    UNIVERSITT     OF    EDrNBURSH 


SECOND    VDITKjJ. 


NEW  YORK: 
CHARLES    SCRIBXER'S    SONS. 

1892. 


IV  AUTHOR'S  PREFACE   TO   THE   ENGLISH  EDITION. 

For  the  rest,  I  do  not  conceal  fi-om  myself  that  it  is  mainly 
to  the  subject  of  my  book  that  I  owe  this  honour.  Great 
Britain  has  always  been  the  classic  land  of  final  causes.  It 
is  there  that  natural  theology  originated,  has  been  developed, 
and  has  held  its  ground  with  honour  down  to  our  days.  In 
our  own  age  a  great  publicist  and  a  great  physiologist.  Lord 
Brougham  and  Sir  Charles  Bell  (both  Scotchmen),  counted  it 
an  honour  to  annotate  the  excellent  work  of  Paley.  Dugald 
Stewart,  in  his  Elements  of  the  Philosophy  of  the  Human  Mind, 
vindicated  against  Bacon  the  utility  of  final  causes  as  a  means 
of  research,  at  least  in  the  sphere  of  the  natural  sciences. 
What  are  called  the  Bridgewater  Treatises  have  rendered 
popular,  by  a  succession  of  scholarly  studies,  the  argument 
drawn  from  design  in  nature;  and  recently,  again,  these  re- 
markable works — the  Duke  of  Argyll's  Reign  of  Law  and 
Professor  Flint's  Theism — have  anew  recalled  attention  to 
this  famous  and  indestructible  argument. 

The  present  work  is  not  altogether  of  the  same  kind  as 
those  of  which  I  have  just  spoken.  It  is  not  a  treatise  of 
natural  theology,  but  an  analytical  and  critical  treatise  on  the 
principle  of  final  causes  itself.  Different  times  require  dif- 
ferent efforts.  Philosophy  has  in  our  days  assumed  a  new 
aspect.  On  the  one  hand,  the  development  of  the  sciences  of 
nature,  which  more  and  more  tends  to  subject  the  phenomena 
of  the  universe  to  a  mechanical  concatenation ;  on  the  other 
hand,  the  development  of  the  critical  and  idealist  philosophy 
that  had  its  centre  in  Germany  at  the  commencement  of  this 
century,  and  which  has  had  its  counterpart  even  in  Scotland 
with  Hamilton  and  Ferrier ;  and,  in  fine,  the  progress  of  the 
spirit  of  inquiry  in  all  departments,  have  rendered  necessary 
a  revision  of  the  problem.  The  principles  themselves  must  be 
subjected  to  criticism.  At  the  present  day  the  mere  adding 
of  facts  to  facts  no  longer  suffices  to  prove  the  existence  of  a 
design  in  nature,  however  useful  for  the  rest  that  work  may 
still  be.  The  real  difficulty  is  in  the  interpretation  of  these 
facts  ;    the  question  is  regarding  the  principle  itself.     This 


AUTHOR'S  PREFACE  TO  THE  ENGLISH  EDITION.  V 

principle  I  have  endeavoured  to  criticise.  I  have  sought  its 
foundations,  authority,  limits,  and  signification,  by  confronting 
it  with  the  data  and  the  conditions  of  modern  science,  as  well 
as  with  the  doctrines  of  the  boldest  and  most  recent  meta- 
physics. If  my  book  has  any  interest,  it  is  in  having  set 
forth  the  problem  in  all  its  complexity,  under  all  its  aspects, 
without  dissembling  any  difficulty,  and  in  presenting  all  the 
interpretations.  Apart  from  every  conclusion,  I  think  I  can 
present  it  to  philosophers  of  all  schools  as  a  complete  treatise 
on  the  subject.  Considered  in  this  point  of  view,  it  will  at 
least  have,  in  default  of  other  merit,  that  of  utility. 

Some  modifications  and,  as  I  hope,  improvements  have  been 
introduced  into  the  English  edition.  The  Appendix,  some- 
what too  extensive  in  the  first  edition,  has  been  relieved  of 
certain  portions  of  less  useful  erudition.  Also  two  pieces, 
which  likewise  formed  part  of  the  Appendix  in  the  French 
edition,  have  been  introduced  into  the  text  itself,  notably  the 
last  chapter  of  the  second  part  (The  Supreme  End  of  Nature). 
By  this  transference  the  work  has  seemed  to  me  to  gain  in 
force  and  interest. 

Paul  Janet. 


FOBOBS-LES-BAINS  (SbOTB  BT  Oi8B), 

10th  October  1878. 


PEEFATORY  NOTE  BY  THE  TRANSLATOR. 

» 

rPHIS  translation  has  been  undertaken  on  the  recommenda- 
-■-  tion  of  Professor  Flint  and  others,  who  regard  M.  Janet's 
work  as  by  far  the  ablest  on  the  subject  of  Final  Causes,  and 
as  well  fitted  to  supply  a  lack  in  our  literature.  By  an  inter- 
esting coincidence,  while  our  version  was  passing  through 
the  press,  the  following  statement  appeared  in  an  influential 
newspaper  of  August  29th,  in  a  letter  from  its  French  corre- 
spoudent,  the  writer  being  in  all  probability  unaware  that  an 
Enghsh  edition  was  in  progress : 

'  Will  there  not  be  found  in  British  science  a  man  of 
eminence  to  fight  the  battle  of  good  sense  and  of  the  facts, 
against  the  monstrous  imaginations  of  Darwin?  If  such  a 
man  comes  out,  he  will  find  powerful  assistants  in  our  Quatre- 
fages,  our  Blanshard,  and  our  Janet.  The  book  of  this  last 
one,  on  the  Causes  Finales,  is  really  an  event  in  science,  and 
ought  to  have  a  large  circulation  among  the  educated  classes 
abroad.' 

The  only  change  that  has  been  made  on  the  original  is 
that,  with  the  author's  approval,  two  notes  in  the  Appendix 
(x.  and  xii.)  have  been  omitted. 


This  translation  has  now  been  compared  with  the  author's 
second  edition,  and  the  numerous  additional  notes  and  other 
changes  and  transpositions  have  all  been  embodied  in  their 
proper  places.  The  translator  would  gratefully  acknowledge 
the  kindness  and  justice  of  the  criticisms  on  his  effort  to  pre- 
sent this  admirable  work  in  fit  English.  He  has  not  been 
unmindful  of  them  in  this  revisal. 

W.  A. 


PEEFACE  BY  PEOPESSOE  FLINT. 


n^HE  publishers  of  this  work  having  requested  rae  to 
-*-  preface  it  with  a  few  words  of  recommendation,  I  will- 
ingly comply  with  their  desire,  although  convinced  that 
scarcely  any  book  has  recently  appeared  which  less  needs 
extrinsic  testimony  in  its  favour. 

The  French  original,  which  was  published  only  in  1876, 
has  already  attracted  to  itself  much  attention,  and  all  candid 
judges,  whether'accepting  or  not  its  conclusions,  have  warmly 
acknowledged  its  great  ability  and  value.  Although  not  an 
absolutely  exhaustive  treatise  on  final  causes,  seeing  that  it 
does  not  attempt  to  trace  their  presence  in  the  regions  of 
intellect  and  emotion,  moralit}^  and  history,  it  is  the  most 
comprehensive  work  which  has  been  written  on  the  subject ; 
while  the  omission  indicated,  whether  intentional  or  not,  is 
perhaps  one  which  could  be  amply  justified.  It  is  also  a 
truly  philosophical  treatise,  alike  in  conception,  spirit,  and 
execution.  Truth  alone  is  sought,  reason  alone  is  appealed 
to,  and  difficulties  are  neither  evaded  nor  represented  as  less 
formidable  than  they  really  are ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  every 
serious  objection,  either  to  the  existence  of  final  causes  in 
nature,  or  to  the  interpretation  which  the  author  would  assign 
to  them,  is  stated  in  its  full  force.  Certainly  no  disposition 
is  shown  to  exaggerate  the  weight  or  worth  of  the  answers 
which  are  given  to  these  objections.  The  general  plan  of  the 
work  is  so  simple,  and  the  manner  in  which  its  argument  is 
gradually  unfolded  is  so  clear  and  natural,  that  the  reader 
is  never  left  in  uncertainty  as  to  where  he  is  or  whither  he  is 
going.  M.  Janet  possesses  in  a  high  degree  the  expository 
talent  for  which  French  writers  are  so  distinguished.     At  the 


X  PREFACE   BY  PROFESSOR  FLINT. 

same  time,  his  earnestness  and  tliorougliness  as  a  thinkei 
prevent  his  making  any  sacrifices  to  mere  external  graces, 
and  hence  he  always  writes  as  one  who,  having  done  every- 
thing to  make  himself  intelligible  to  his  readers,  expects  from 
them  in  return  their  whole  attention. 

The  first  of  the  two  parts  into  which  the  treatise  is  divided 
deals  with  the  problem,  Are  there  ends  in  nature  ?  In  order 
to  discuss  this  problem  in  a  satisfactory  manner  at  the  present 
day,  a  man  need  not  be  a  specialist  in  mechanical  and  biologi- 
cal science,  but  he  must  have  an  extensive  and  accurate 
general  knowledge  of  such  science,  and  an  acquaintance  with^ 
and  insight  into,  its  history,  methods,  limits,  and  tendencies, 
which  few  specialists  display.  M.  Janet  possesses  these  quali- 
fications in  an  eminent  degree,  and  was  well  known  to  posses* 
them  before  he  wrote  this  work,  in  which  they  are  so  conspic- 
uous. The  possession  of  them  had  enabled  him  to  intervene 
in  the  Materialistic  controversy  on  the  side  of  a  spiritualistic 
philosophy  more  effectively  perhaps  than  any  other  French 
thinker.  The  present  work  is  the  natural  sequel  of  two  ad- 
mirable smaller  writings,  Le  Cerveau  et  la  Pensee  (1867)  and 
Le  Materialisme  Contemporain  (1875,  2d  ed.).  The  latter  has 
been  translated  into  English  and  German.  The  second  part 
of  the  present  treatise  deals  with  the  problem.  What  is  the 
ultimate  cause  or  explanation  of  ends  in  nature  ?  For  its  dis- 
cussion speculative  talent  and  an  intimate  acquaintance  with 
modern  metaphysics  are  demanded.  The  demand  is,  of  course, 
met  in  M.  Janet,  whose  life  has  been  assiduously  devoted  to 
the  cultivation  of  philosophy,  and  who  is  the  author  of  works 
of  acknowledged  value  in  almost  all  its  departments.  French 
spiritualism  has  at  present  no  abler  or  more  influential  repre- 
sentative in  the  Institute,  the  University,  or  the  Press ;  and 
French  spiritualism,  although  attacked  from  all  sides,  —  by 
positivists,  experimentalists,  criticists,  idealists,  and  mystics, 
—  is  still  well  able  to  hold  its  own,  and  at  least  as  strong  in 
men,  principles,  and  services  as  any  other  school  of  French 
thought. 


PREFACE   BY  PROFESSOR  FLINT.  xi 

On  a  few  points  my  views  do  not  entirely  coincide  with 
those  maintained  by  M.  Janet  in  the  present  volume.  It 
would  be  useless  and  ungracious,  however,  merely  to  indicate 
these  differences,  and  it  is  impossible  to  discuss  them  within 
the  limits  of  a  preface.  The  argumentation  as  a  whole  com- 
mands my  full  assent ;  and  while  I  should  welcome  any 
adequate  attempt  to  refute  it  as  not  less  valuable  than  itself, 
I  have  little  expectation  of  seeing  any  refutation  of  the  kind 
There  seems  to  be  small  hope  of  a  work  as  comprehensive  and 
thorough  as  that  of  M.  Janet's  being  written  from  the  opposite 
point  of  view,  when  even  a  critic  of  the  talent  of  Mr.  Sully 
can  fancy  that  there  is  relevancy  in  such  reasoning  as  the 
following :  — '  One  or  two  observations  on  M.  Janet's  line  of 
reasoning  must  suffice.  We  hardly  think  he  will  secure  the 
support  of  men  of  science  in  limiting  the  action  of  physical 
or  mechanical  causation  where  he  does.  To  say,  for  example, 
that  mechanical  principles  cannot  account  for  the  symmetrical 
arrangement  of  the  lines  of  a  crystal,  is  surely  to  betray  a 
rather  superficial  acquaintance  with  the  mechanical  mode  of 
explanation.  It  seems  much  too  soon,  in  view  of  Mr. 
Darwin's  reduction  of  so  many  adaptations  to  a  strictly 
mechanical  process,  to  affirm  that  physical  causation  is  in- 
adequate to  account  for  the  orderly  arrangements  ,of  living 
structures.  We  are,  no  doubt,  still  a  long  way  from  a 
mechanical  theory  of  organic  growth,  but  it  may  be  said  to 
be  the  qucesitum  of  modern  science,  and  no  one  can  say  that 
it  is  a  chimera.  Should  it  ever  be  reached,  one  suspects,  in 
spite  of  M.  Janet's  assurances,  that  ideas  of  final  causes  will 
soon  wax  very  faint.  For  such  a  theory,  while  admitting  that 
there  is  a  close  relation  between  organ  and  function,  would 
be  able  to  furnish  another  explanation  of  the  relation ;  and  M. 
Janet's  argument,  that  what  resembles  the  result  of  internal 
volition  cannot  be  due  to  another  cause,  will  hardl}^  convince 
those  who  are  familiar  with  the  doctrine  of  the  plurality  of 
causes.  The  author  seems  to  us  to  argue  most  weakly  when 
he  seeks  to  assimilate  our  knowledge  of  design  in  nature  to 


xii  PREFACE  BY  PROFESSOR  FLINT. 

that  of  others'  conscious  thoughts  and  volitions.  T'he  inde- 
pendent chains  of  reasoning  by  which  we  are  able  to  establish 
the  existence  of  another  mind,  whether  in  one  of  our  fellow- 
men  or  of  the  lower  animals,  serve  as  a  mode  of  mutual 
verification,  and  to  this  there  corresponds  nothing  in  the 
teleological  argument.'  —  Mind,  No.  5,  Jan.  1877,  pp.  246-7. 
Now,  the  central  idea  of  M.  Janet's  book  is  that  final 
causes  are  not  inconsistent  with  physical  causation.  This 
idea  he  endeavours  to  confirm  by  an  elaborate  process  of 
cautious  reasoning,  which  extends  through  both  parts  of  his 
work.  In  other  words,  the  general  aim  of  his  whole  treatise 
is  to  show  that  Mr.  Sully's  objection  is  irrelevant  and  in- 
admissible. This  being  the  case,  Mr.  Sully  was  obviously 
bound  in  logical  fairness  to  refute  M.  Janet's  argumentation 
before  urging  an  objection  which  takes  no  account  of  it  what- 
ever. It  would  'betray  a  rather  superficial  acquaintance  with 
the  mechanical  mode  of  explanation  to  say  that  mechanical 
principles  cannot  account  for  the  symmetrical  arrangement  of 
the  lines  of  a  crystal ; '  but  to  attribute  to  M.  Janet  any 
saying  of  the  kind  is  to  show  a  wonderful  capacity  for  mis- 
apprehending what  he  really  says,  which  is,  '  that  the  produc- 
tion of  the  crystalline  forms  of  minerals  can  he  mechanically 
explained  by  an  agglomeration  of  molecules,  of  which  each 
one  has  precisely  the  same  geometric  form  as  the  whole,'  but 
that  the  need  of  belief  in  thought  or  design  is  not  thereby 
dispensed  with,  being  still  demanded  by  the  very  forms  of  the 
molecules  and  the  co-ordinated  action  of  the  mechanical  laws. 
M.  Janet  has  taken  great  pains  to  show  that  those  who  are 
truly  familiar  with  the  doctrine  of  the  plurality  of  causes 
will  not  oppose  mechanical  causes  to  final  causes,  or  to  a 
primary  intelligent  cause,  and  those  who  dissent  from  him 
must  display  their  familiarity  with  the  doctrine  by  proving 
that  he  is  mistaken  in  this  respect,  and  has  not  made  good  his 
conclusion.  I  do  not  wonder  that  Mr.  Sully  should  think 
that  M.  Janet  'argues  most  weakly  when  he  seeks  to  assimilate 
our  knowledge  of  design  in  nature  to  that  of  others'  conscious 


PREFACE   BY   PROFESSOR  FLINT.  xiij 

thoughts  and  volitions,'  for  he  clearly  does  not  understand 
his  argument.  No  man  who  does  will  fancy  that  there  are 
any  independent  chains  of  reasoning  by  which  we  establish 
the  existence  of  another  mind,  human  or  animal,  to  which 
nothing  corresponds  in  the  teleological  argument.  The 
evidences  of  design  are  our  only  evidences  for  the  existence 
of  other  human  minds.  The  use  of  spoken  and  written 
language,  the  production  of  machinery,  the  association  of 
efforts,  the  co-ordination  of  actions,  etc.,  are  not  independent 
chains  of  reasoning,  but  simply  links  in  the  one  chain  of 
inference  from  the  evidences  of  design  to  intelligence,  which 
is  the  only  proof  we  possess  that  other  men  have  minds. 

Mr.  AfQeck  has,  it  seems  to  me,  done  good  service  by  his- 
excellent  translation  of  M.  Janet's  very  able  and  important 
work. 

R.  Flint. 

The  University  of  Edinbuboh, 
October  29, 1878. 


PREFACE  TO  THE  SECOND  EDITION. 


WE  reprint  this  book  on  Final  Causes  with  notable  modi- 
fications, bearing,  if  not  on  the  things  themselves,  at 
least  on  the  order  and  arrangement  of  the  materials.  We 
have  relegated  to  the  Appendix  a  certain  number  of  develop- 
ments that  were  in  the  text,  and  which  retarded  the  discussion 
and  interrupted  its  sequence  and  connection ;  and,  recipro- 
cally, we  have  introduced  into  the  text  important  pieces  which 
have  seemed  to  us  to  form  an  integral  part  of  our  subject.^ 

This  book  is  not,  as  has  been  said  (for  the  rest,  with  good 
will)  in  some  reviews,  a  work  of  polemic :  it  is  a  work  of 
criticism,  which  is  very  different.  Polemic  is  a  method  of 
combat;  criticism  is  a  method  of  research.  Polemic  only 
sees  the  feebleness  of  the  adversary  and  the  strength  of  the 
thesis  that  is  defended ;  criticism  sees  the  weakness  and  the 
strength  of  both  sides.  Polemic  is  engaged  beforehand,  and 
pursues  a  determined  aim ;  criticism  is  disinterested,  and  lets 
itself  be  led  to  the  result  by  analysis  and  examination. 
Criticism  is  methodical  doubt ;  it  is  therefore  the  philosophic 
method  par  excellence.  In  a  science  in  which  one  has  not  at 
his  disposal  the  methods  of  rigorous  verification  possessed  by 
the  other  sciences,  namely,  experiment  and  calculation,  in  a 
science  in  which  one  has  only  reasoning  at  his  disposal,  if  one 
is  content  with  a  one-sided  reasoning  that  only  presents  things 
under  one  aspect,  one  will  doubtless  be  able  to  think  what  one 
pleases,  and  each  one,  thinking  for  his  part,  will  have  the  same 
right ;  but  there  will  then  be  as  many  philosophies  as  individ- 
uals, and  no  common,  no  objective  philosophy.      Philosophic 

1  See  in  the  sequel  of  the  Preface  the  note  where  we  explain  more  in  detail 
the  changes  made  in  this  edition, 
xiv 


PREFACE   TO   THE   SECOND   EDITION.  XV 

reasoning,  it  seems  to  us,  to  compensate  for  what  it  lacks  on 
the  side  of  rigorous  verification,  ought  therefore  to  control 
itself,  to  be  two-sided,  to  examine  at  once  the  pro  and  the 
contra^ — in  fine,  to  be  what  the  English  call  cross-examina- 
tion. 

This  method  we  have  sought  to  apply  to  the  principle  of 
final  causes.  Our  aim  then  was  much  less  the  criticism  of 
the  adversaries  of  this  principle,  than  the  criticism  of  this 
principle  itself:  for  the  more  we  have  it  at  heart,  the  more 
ought  we  to  desire  that  it  should  withstand  all  trials;  the 
more  ought  we  to  assure  ourselves  of  its  solidity.  To  found 
a  doctrine  only  on  the  negation  of  the  opposite  doctrine  is  a 
frail  foundation  ;  for,  because  others  are  vrrong,  it  does  not 
follow  that  we  are  right ;  and  because  our  objections  are 
strong,  it  does  not  follow  that  the  objections  of  the  oppo- 
nents are  weak.  This  account  taken  of  the  objection  is 
sometimes  regarded  as  a  complaisant  concession,  inspired  by 
the  exaggerated  desire  of  peace.  An  absolute  error!  It  is, 
on  the  contrary,  a  method  of  verification,  which  replaces, 
very  imperfectly  no  doubt,  but  in  a  certain  measure,  the 
verification  of  experiment  and  calculation.  The  objection 
in  metaphysic  is  the  part  of  the  forgotten  and  unknown 
facts.  To  suppress  the  objection,  or  to  express  it  softly,  is 
to  suppress  one  side  of  the  facts ;  it  is  to  present  the  part 
of  the  things  that  suits  us,  and  to  dissemble  that  which  does 
not  suit  us ;  it  is  to  take  more  care  of  our  opinion  than  of 
the  truth  itself.  If,  by  this  cross-examination,  the  truth 
appears  much  more  difficult  to  discover,  it  is  not  our  fault, 
but  that  of  the  nature  of  things ;  but  an  incomplete  truth, 
expressed  in  a  modest  way,  is  worth  more  than  a  pretentious 
error  or  an  emphatic  prejudice. 

After  this  rule  the  doctrine  of  final  causes,  precisely 
because  it  is  ours,  has  been  subjected  by  us  to  the  most 
severe  criticism ;  we  have  made  it  pass  through  all  trials ;  we 
have  pushed  the  affairs  of  mechanism  as  far  as  we  could,  for 
causes  must  not  be  multiplied  without  necessity.     So  far  as 


XVI  PREFACE   TO  THE   SECOND  EDITION. 

mechanism  suffices,  we  have  no  need  of  final  causes;  if  it 
sufficed  everywhere,  there  would  be  no  need  of  them  at  all. 
But  however  great  a  part  be  assigned  to  it,  there  alwaj^s 
comes  a  moment  when  it  runs  aground  and  breaks  down, 
were  it  only  for  example  before  the  final  causes  in  man.  It 
is  then  that  by  way  of  regression  the  territory  in  appearance 
abandoned  can  be  retaken  little  by  little :  we  can  ascend 
from  psychological  finality  to  physiological  and  organic 
finality,  and  from  that  still  higher,  till  we  finish  by  recognis- 
ing that  mechanism  not  only  does  not  suffice  everywhere, 
but  that  it  suffices  nowhere,  that  it  only  explains  the  appear- 
ance, and  not  the  foundation  and  reality.  The  true,  the 
really  manly  method,  is,  then,  that  which  places  itself  in  the 
very  heart  of  the  difficulties,  and  which,  from  these  very 
difficulties,  elicits  the  necessity  of  an  ultra-mechanical  prin- 
ciple —  a  principle  of  finality  and  of  thought. 

Such  is  our  method ;  and  now  here  are  our  conclusions. 
They  are  reducible  to  three  fundamental  propositions : 

T.  The  first  is  that  there  is  no  a  priori  principle  of  final 
causes.  The  final  cause  is  an  induction,  a  hypothesis,  whose 
probability  depends  on  the  number  and  characters  of  ob- 
served phenomena. 

II.  The  second  is  that  the  final  cause  is  proved  by  the 
existence  in  fact  of  certain  combinations,  such  that  the 
accord  of  these  combinations  with  a  final  phenomenon  inde- 
pendent of  them  would  be  a  mere  chance,  and  that  nature 
altogether  must  be  explained  by  an  accident. 

III.  The  third,  in  fine,  is  that  the  relation  of  finality  being 
once  admitted  as  a  law  of  the  universe,  the  only  hypothesis 
appropriate  to  our  understanding  that  can  account  for  this 
law,  is  that  it  is  derived  from  an  intelligent  cause. 

I.  As  regards  the  first  point,  we  are  certainly  of  those  who 
would  wish  that  the  principle  of  final  causes  were  self-evi- 
dent, or  that  at  least,  subjected  to  reflection,  it  appeared  to 
us  with  the  characters  of  necessity  and  universality  that 
Leibnitz  and  Kant  have  signalized  as  the  marks  of  notions 


PREFACE  TO  THE   SECOND   EDITION.  XVll 

d  priori.  But  it  is  impossible  for  us  to  find  in  it  this  double 
character.  It  is  necessary  that  all  that  is  produced  have  a 
cause ;  it  is  not  necessary  that  all  that  is  produced  have  an 
end.  If  there  were  in  nature  only  physical  and  chemical 
facts,  an  intelligence  that  should  contemplate  them  apart  from 
itself  would  be  sufficiently  satisfied  by  an  explanation  that 
would  attach  each  phenomenon  to  its  anterior  cause,  without 
pre-occupjang  itself  with  the  future  effect.  It  is  said  that 
nothing  is  made  without  reason,  and  that  reason  is  always  a 
motive,  an  aim.  This  is  to  equivocate  with  the  word  reason, 
which  may  sometimes  signify  the  determining  reason,  namely, 
that  which  precedes,  and  sometimes  the  consecutive  or  final 
reason,  that  is  to  say,  that  which  follows.  But,  in  many  cases, 
the  first  reason  suffices.  A  billiard  ball  struck  by  another  is 
moved  in  such  a  direction ;  that  direction  is  explained  by 
the  stroke  alone,  and  by  the  direction  of  the  stroke,  without 
it  being  necessary  to  suppose  in  the  striking  ball  a  sort  of 
presentiment  or  foretaste  of  the  effect  produced. 

If  one,  then,  must  recognise  final  causes,  it  is  only  for  this 
reason,  that  in  certain  cases  the  anterior  reason  does  not 
suffice  ;  it  is  that,  between  that  reason  and  the  fact  produced 
tliere  is  a  void,  a  gap,  an  abyss,  in  a  word,  a  chance.  The 
final  cause,  then,  is  only  the  application  of  the  more  general 
principle  of  sufficient  reason.  So  far  as  the  anterior  causes 
suffice,  we  must  abide  by  them  ;  for  we  must  not  multiply 
causes  without  necessity ;  but  are  there  not  cases  where  the 
anterior  causes  do  not  suffice,  and  where  we  must  bring  in 
the  ulterior  or  final  causes?     That  is  the  question. 

So  truly  is  that  the  question,  that  even  those  who,  in  the 
most  decided  manner,  lay  down  the  principle  of  finality  as  a 
self-evident  principle,  only  lay  it  down  after  all  in  giving 
precisely  the  reason  which  we  have  just  given,  that  is,  in 
signalizing  the  facts  where  the  mechanical  cause  does  not 
suffice ;  for  instance,  organisms,  genera,  and  species.  But 
then,  if  such  facts  did  not  exist,  and  if  nature  were  reduced 
to  physical  and  chemical  facts,  the  hypothesis  would  become 


XVm  PREFACE   TO  THE   SECOND   EDITION. 

useless.    It  is  not  then  an  a  priori  principle,  applicable  every- 
where in  a  necessary  and  universal  manner. 

II.  Now,  what  is  the  distinctive  character  of  these  facts  in 
which  we  recognise  the  necessity  of  an  entirely  new  order  of 
things,  namely,  of  the  final  cause  ?  That  character  is  adap- 
tation to  the  future.  This  is  the  object  of  our  second  proposi- 
tion. It  is  here  that  our  analysis  ought  to  have  all  the 
precision  possible  to  render  evident  the  truth  we  defend ;  for 
equivocation  is  very  difficult  to  avoid.  It  is  said  in  effect, 
and  it  is  the  fundamental  argument  of  all  the  anti-finalists, 
that  every  effect,  simply  because  it  is  an  effect,  must  find  in 
the  cause  that  produces  it  a  sufficient  reason  of  its  production, 
and  that  there  is  no  room  for  wonder  that  the  causes  are  fit 
to  produce  that  effect,  since  otherwise  they  would  not  pro- 
duce it.  Adaptation  to  the  future,  then,  being  the  character 
of  all  causality  without  exception,  could  not  suffice  in  any 
fashion  as  a  criterion  to  characterise  finality  and  serve  as  its 
proof.  That  is  the  difficulty  :  here  is  the  solution.  Without 
doubt,  given  a  certain  number  of  causes  that  act  together, 
they  must  produce  a  certain  effect,  and  it  is  no  way  astonish- 
ing that  they  be  appropriate  to  that  effect ;  but  that  effect,  so 
far  as  it  is  only  a  result,  can  only  be  an  effect  whatsoever^  hav- 
ing no  relation  to  the  interest  of  the  being  that  is  the  subject 
of  it,  supposing  that  there  are  beings  that  have  interest  in 
such  phenomena  rather  than  in  others ;  but  that  is  the  prop- 
erty of  living  beings.  Suppose,  now,  that  such  an  interest 
exists,  it  is  then  evident  that  we  no  longer  have  to  do  with 
whatsoever  effects,  but  with  determined  effects,  having  a 
precise  relation  to  the  conservation  of  the  being.  The  un- 
limited field  of  undetermined  effects  is  restrained  ;  an  infini- 
tude of  effects  are  found  to  be  set  aside  as  indifferent  or 
contrary  to  the  conservation  of  the  being ;  those  only  must 
be  produced  that  are  in  harmony  with  life ;  but  these  phe- 
nomena are  still  in  the  future  when  the  organization  is  formed : 
that  organization,  in  place  of  being  called  to  produce  whatso- 
ever effects,  is  circumscribed  in  its  work  by  the  necessity  to 


PREFACE   TO   THE   SECOND   EDITION.  XIX 

produce  siicli  a  given  effect  and  not  another :  this  is  what  we 
call  adaptation  to  the  future.  For  that  there  must  be  an  ar- 
rangement of  causes,  not  merely  a  confused  and  any  rencoun- 
ter, but  a  precise  and  limited  rencounter.  It  is  this  precision, 
limitation,  and  circumscription  in  the  arrangement  of  causes 
that  is  not  explained,  and  that  consequently  in  the  mechanist 
hypothesis  is  without  cause.  The  proof  of  finality,  then,  is 
made  by  the  principle  of  causality. 

III.  As  to  the  third  proposition,  namely,  that  the  finality 
of  nature  is  not  possible  without  an  intelligent  cause,  we 
recognise  with  most  of  the  critics  who  have  been  so  good  as 
to  occupy  themselves  with  our  book,  that  this  is  the  most 
delicate  point  of  the  demonstration.  For  it  is  said,  if  it  is 
true  that  one  can  explain  finality  by  intelligence,  by  what 
shall  we  explain  intelligence,  which  is  itself  a  finality  ?  And 
if  there  may  be  a  finality  by  itself,  and  without  cause  (as  is 
implicitly  admitted  in  recognising  an  intelligence  that  is  self- 
existent),  why  should  it  not  be  so  with  the  finality  of  nature 
as  well  as  of  intelligence  itself?  —  But  it  is  a  law  of  science, 
applicable  as  well  to  philosophy  as  to  the  other  sciences,  that 
we  must  push  an  explanation  as  far  as  possible,  but  stop  if 
we  cannot  push  it  further.  The  scientist  is  warranted  to 
explain  the  world  by  universal  attraction,  even  if  that  attrac- 
tion itself  should  not  be  explained.  Now,  there  can  only  be 
three  modes  of  explaining  the  facts  of  adaptation  in  nature, 
namely,  mechanism,  instinct,  and  intelligence ;  but  mechan- 
ism is  excluded  by  all  that  precedes ;  there  remain  instinct 
and  intelligence.  As  to  instinct,  it  is  first  exposed  to  all  the 
objections  that  can  be  directed  against  intelligence  itself, 
namely,  that  it  is  itself  a  finality,  that  it  is  a  fact  pertaining 
to  finite  nature,  that  it  supposes  the  organism,  etc.  But, 
moreover,  to  these  objections,  equal  on  both  sides,  there  is  to 
be  added  one  against  instinct  that  suffices  to  set  it  aside  as 
primary  cause,  namely,  that  it  is  an  occult  faculty,  a  nescio 
quid  that,  very  far  from  explaining  any  thing,  is  itself  incom- 
prehensible.    On  the  other  hand,  mechanism  and  intelligence 


XX  PREFACE   TO  THE   SECOND  EDITION. 

are  two  knoyn  causes,  of  which  we  can  form  clear  and 
distinct  ideas ;  whence  it  follows  that  if  mechanism  is  set 
aside,  as  it  ought  to  be,  there  only  remains  intelligence  as  a 
precise  cause  of  which  we  could  have  any  idea.  In  truth,  if 
we  are  thus  led  by  way  of  exclusion  to  admit  intelligence  as 
supreme  cause,  we  recognise  at  the  same  time  that  the  mode 
of  intelligence  whence  finality  might  be  derived  is  to  us  in- 
comprehensible ;  for  foresight,  which  is  the  mode  whereby 
finite  beings  attain  ends,  appears  incompatible  with  the 
nature  of  the  absolute  being,  since  it  supposes,  on  the  one 
hand,  the  idea  of  time  (pre-vision)  ;  on  the  other,  the  idea  of 
difficulties  or  obstacles  to  conquer,  or  of  certain  pre-existing 
properties  of  matter  to  be  employed  to  attain  this  or  that 
end,  notions  all  excluded  by  the  very  nature  of  the  absolute. 
It  will  be  seen  in  the  course  of  this  work  how  we  have 
endeavoured  to  solve  these  difficulties  ;  we  have  endeavoured 
to  show  that  there  is  even  in  man  a  mode  of  intelligence 
that  is  superior  to  foresight  and  to  calculation,  namely,  inspi- 
ration ;  but  this  mode  of  intelligence,  although  having  analo- 
gies with  instinct,  is  not  to  be  confounded  with  it,  for  instinct 
is  routine,  and  inspiration  is  creative.  If,  then,  there  is  some- 
thing in  us  that  can  give  some  idea  of  creation  itself,  it  is 
thence  that  one  can  derive  it.  Let  us  add,  that  even  under 
this  supreme  form  intelligence  is  yet  only  the  most  approxi- 
mate symbol  by  which  we  can  endeavour  to  comprehend  the 
production  by  the  creator  of  means  and  ends.  We  believe 
that  without  pretending  to  comprehend  the  incomprehensi- 
ble, we  must  be  allowed  to  seek  in  what  we  know  the  most 
elevated  type  possible  in  order  to  conceive  what  we  do  not 
know.  Without  doubt,  what  we  call  by  the  name  of  divine 
intelligence  is  something  very  different  from  what  we  think 
in  employing  that  word ;  but  we  mean  to  say  thereby,  that 
there  is  in  God  a  cause  of  finality  which  is  at  least  intelli- 
gence, and  which,  if  it  is  something  more,  that  something 
must  be  capable  of  translation  into  finite  language  by  the 
word  intelligence.     Believing  besides,  like  Descartes,  in  the 


PREFACE   TO  THE   SECOND  EDITION.  xxi 

veracity  of  our  intelligence,  without  therefore  believing  in 
its  equivalence  to  the  absolute,  we  believe  ourselves  war- 
ranted to  represent  the  divine  perfections  to  ourselves  by  the 
attributes  to  which  our  reason  conducts  us  when  we  consider 
them  in  the  point  of  view  of  our  finite  spirit.  The  attributes 
of  God  are  only,  as  F^nelon  has  said,  the  names  by  which  we 
distinguish  the  different  faces  of  the  divine  unity  when  we 
consider  it  in  its  relation  with  the  world.  It  is  thus  we  call 
Him  wise,  when  we  see  the  marvellous  accommodation  of 
means  and  ends ;  good.,  when  we  think  of  the  abundance  of 
His  gifts ;  just.,  when  we  compare  our  merits  and  demerits 
with  our  actual  or  future  destinies.  Wisdom  is  the  most 
visible  of  these  attributes,  and  it  is  that  to  which  the  contem- 
plation of  final  causes  conducts  us.  Doubtless  the  word  is 
improper,  like  all  that  we  borrow  from  human  language  to 
express  the  divinity  ;  but  if  by  a  transformation  of  intelli- 
gence we  could  anew  translate  the  same  thought  from  human 
language  into  divine,  we  would  doubtless  see  that  we  were 
as  near  the  truth  as  a  finite  spirit  can  be.  It  is  in  these 
terms,  and  under  these  reservations,  that  we  maintain  the 
doctrine  of  an  intelligent  cause  of  finality.  We  do  not 
think  that  one  can  go  farther ;  but  we  think  that  one  can 
and  ought  to  go  so  far. 

Note.  —  The  following  are  the  most  important  modifica- 
tions made  on  this  new  edition,  and  which  were  already  partly 
to  be  found  in  the  English  translation  of  this  work  (by 
William  Affleck,  Edinburgh  1878,  with  a  Preface  by  Professor 
Flint)  : 

1.  Chapter  vi.  (Book  i.)  of  the  first  edition,  entitled 
Objections  and  Difficulties.,  interrupted,  by  too  long,  special,  and 
more  historical  than  actual  discussions,  the  current  of  the 
general  discussion.  Of  this  chapter  we  have  preserved, 
under  the  title  of  Contrary  Facts  (chap,  v.),  all  that  could  be 
attached  to  the  general  discussion,  and  have  relegated  the 
rest  to  the  Appendix  under  these  different  titles :  V.  Final 


XXll  PREFACE   TO  THE   SECOND  EDITION. 

Causes  and  the  Positivist   Objection;  VII.  Lucretius,  Bacon, 
Descartes,  and  Spinoza;  VIII.  Abuse  of  Final  Causes. 

2.  We  have  introduced  into  the  text  No.  8  of  the  first 
Appendix,  entitled  Herbert  Spencer  and  Evolutionism  ;  that 
discussion  has  seemed  to  us  altogether  essential,  and  to  be 
closely  connected  with  the  question  of  evolution  in  general, 
and  in  particular  with  the  system  of  Darwin. 

3.  We  have  likewise  removed  from  the  Appendix  into  the 
text,  in  quality  of  final  chapter,  the  last  piece  of  the  first 
Appendix,  entitled  Of  the  Supreme  End  of  Nature.  This 
piece  has  seemed  to  us  to  terminate  the  work  in  a  more 
interesting  and  less  abstract  manner  than  the  first  conclusion. 
It  presents,  besides,  the  advantage  of  opening  a  prospect  for 
a  second  work,  which  we  will  not  do,  but  which  others  will 
be  able  to  do  in  our  stead,  namely,  finality  in  the  moral 
order,  a  gap  which  has  been  with  reason  remarked  in  our 
book,  but  which  we  could  only  have  filled  up  by  doubling  the 
work,  —  already  too  voluminous,  —  and  which  would,  besides, 
exceed  our  actual  strength. 

Let  us  add,  that  independently  of  these  notable  changes 
of  composition,  there  are  also  many  changes  of  detail,  and, 
especially  in  the  notes,  additions  that  are  not  without 
importance. 

Paris,  lUh  February  1882. 


CONTENTS. 


TREFACES,        ..... 
PRELIMINARY   CHAPTER  —  THE    PROBLEM, 


PAGE 

.  v-xiv 
1 


BOOK    I. 

THE   LAW   OF  FINALITY,         ....... 

CHAPTER  I.    THE   PRINCIPLE,        ...... 

II.    THE  FACTS,  ....... 

ni.    THE   INDUSTRY  OF   MAN  AND  THE  INDUSTRY  OF  NATURE, 
rv.    ORGAN  AND  FUNCTION,      ..... 

V.    THE  CONTRARY  FACTS,        .  . 

VI.    MECHANISM  AND  FINALITY,  .... 

VII.    THE   DOCTRINE  OF   EVOLUTION    IN  GENERAL,    . 
Vm.    THE   DOCTRINE   OF   EVOLUTION  —  LAMARCK  AND   DARWIN, 
rx.    THE  DOCTRINE  OF    EVOLUTION  —  HERBERT   SPENCER, 


15 

17 
62 
92 
117 
14G 
172 
215 
232 
264 


BOOK  11. 

THE  FIRST   CAUSE   OF   FINALITY,     .... 
CHAPTER  I.    THE   PHYSIGO-THEOLOGICAL   PROOF, 

II.    SUBJECTIVE   AND   IMMANENT    FINALITY, 

III.  INSTINCTIVE   AND   INTENTIONAL   FINALITY, 

IV.  THE  PURE   IDEA  AND   CREATIVE   ACTIVITY, 
V.    THE   SUPREME   END   OF   NATURE, 


287 
291 
314 
346 
387 
414 


APPENDIX. 

I.    THE   PROBLEM   OF   INDUCTION, 

II.   cuvier's  law,  ..... 

m.    LESAGE   OF  GENEVA   AND   FINAL   CAUSES,   . 

IV.    GEOFFKOY   ST.   HILAIRE   AND   THE   DOCTRINE   OP  FINAL  CAUSES, 
V.    FINAL   CAUSES   AND   THE  POSITIVIST   OBJECTION, 

VI.  OPTIMISM  —  VOLTAIRE  AND  ROUSSEAU,       . 

VII.  OBJECTIONS     AND     DIFFICULTIES  —  LUCRETIUS,     BACON,     DB8CAETBS 

AND   SPINOZA,         ..... 
rni.    ABUSE   OF   FINAL   CAUSES,       .... 
IX.    FINAL   CAUSES   IN  THE   SANKHYA   PHILOSOPHY,      . 
X.    THE  PHYSICO-THEOLOGICAL  PROOF, 


427 

435 
439 
446 
454 

460 

474 
491 
504 
510- 


FINAL    CAUSES. 


PRELIMINARY   CHAPTER. 

THE  PROBLEM. 

nnHE  term  final  cause  (causa  finalis)  was  introduced  into 
-'-  the  language  of  philosophy  by  scholasticism.^  It  signifies 
the  end  Qfinis)  for  which  one  acts,  or  towards  which  one 
tends,  and  which  may  consequently  be  considered  as  a  cause 
of  action  or  of  motion.  Aristotle  explains  it  thus  :  '  Another 
sort  of  cause  is  the  end,  that  is  to  say,  that  on  account  of  which 
(to  ov  h'eKa)  the  action  is  done ;  for  example,  in  this  sense, 
health  is  the  cause  of  walking  exercise.  Why  does  such  a 
one  take  exercise  ?  We  say  it  is  in  order  to  have  good 
health ;  and,  in  speaking  thus,  we  mean  to  name  the  cause.'  ^ 
Let  us  examine  closely  the  proper  and  singular  character 
of  this  kind  of  cause.  What  characterises  it  is,  that,  accord- 
ing to  the  point  of  view  which  one  occupies,  the  same  fact 
can  be  taken  either  as  cause  or  as  effect.  Health  is  without 
doubt  the  cause  of  walking,  but  it  is  also  the  effect  of  it.  On 
the  one  hand,  health  only  comes  after  walking,  and  by  it.  It 
is  because  my  will,  and,  by  its  orders,  my  members,  have  exe- 
cuted a  certain  movement,  that  health  has  followed.  But.  on 
the  other  hand,  in  another  sense,  it  is  in  order  to  obtain  this 

1  Aristotle  never  employs  it.  He  says,  the  end  (t6  Te'.\os),  that  on  account  of 
which  (to  ov  tVe/ca),  but  never  the  final  cause  (aiWa  t^Aik?;).  It  is  the  same  with 
other  causes,  which  he  always  designates  by  substantives  (uAij,  eiSos,  apxv  «'»'^- 
<rc(os).  The  scholastics  transformed  these  substantives  into  adjectives  :  causa 
mater  talis,  efficiejis,  formalis,  finalis. 

2  Phys.  lib.  ii.  c.  3. 

1 


2  PRELIMINARY   CHAPTER. 

good  health  that  I  have  walked ;  because,  without  the  hope, 
the  desire,  the  preconceived  idea  of  the  benefit  of  health, 
perhaps  I  would  not  have  gone  out,  and  mj  members  would 
have  remained  in  repose.  A  man  kills  another :  in  a  sense 
the  death  of  the  latter  had  as  a  cause  the  action  of  killing, 
that  is  to  say,  the  action  of  plunging  a  poniard  into  a  living 
body,  a  mechanical  cause  Avithout  which  there  would  have 
been  no  death  ;  but  reciprocally  this  action  of  killing  had  as 
a  determining  cause  the  will  to  kill,  and  the  death  of  the 
victim,  foreseen  and  willed  beforehand  by  the  criminal,  was 
the  determining  cause  of  the  crime.  Thus  a  final  cause  is  a 
fact  which  may  be  in  some  sort  considered  as  the  cause  of  its 
own  cause  ;  but  as  it  is  impossible  for  it  to  be  a  cause  before 
it  exists,  the  true  cause  is  not  the  fact  itself,  but  its  idea. 
y  ;  In  other  words,  it  is  a  foreseen  effect.,  which  could  not  have 
taken  place  without  this  foresight.^ 

It  is  true  it  would  be  affirming  a  great  deal,  and  perhaps 
transgressing  the  limits  of  experience,  to  require  for  every 
species  of  end  an  express  foresight  in  the  agent  that  pursues 
that  end.  We  will  take,  for  example,  the  phenomenon  of 
instinct,  where  all  evidence  shows  that  the  animal  pursues 
an  end,  but  without  knowing  that  it  does  so,  and  without 
having  previously  conceived  it  in  its  imagination,  nor  yet  the 
means,  infallible  although  the}'  be,  by  which  it  can  attain  it. 
Generalizing  this  difficulty,  perhaps  it  will  be  said  that  even 
in  rising  to  the  first  cause  of  the  universe,  one  has  no  more 
reason  to  imagine  it  as  an  intelligence  which  foresees  an 
effect,  than  as  an  instinct  which  surely  but  blindly  tends  to 
it  by  an  intrinsic  necessity. 

We  do  not  yet  require  to  occupy  ourselves  with  these  pre- 

1  By  carrying  the  analysis  farther  one  can  distinguish,  witla  Hartmann 
(Philosophie  dcs  Unbewiissten,  Introd.  chap,  ii.),  four  elements  in  tlie  final  cause, 

I  — 1st,  the  conception  of  the  end  ;  2d,  the  conception  of  the  means  ;  3d,  the 

II  realisation  of  the  means  ;  4th,  the  realization  of  the  end.    Whence  it  follows 
'  that  the  order  of  execution  reproduces  inversely  the  order  of  conception  ; 

whence  it  follows,  again,  that  what  is  last  in  execution  (the  end)  is  the  first  in 
conception  (the  idea  of  the  end).  This  is  expressed  by  the  scholastic  axiom  : 
Quod  fius  est  in  intentione  vUiimim  est  in  executione. 


THE  PROBLEM.  3 

mature  difficulties ;  let  us  merely  say  that  to  give  a  clear  idea 
of  the  final  cause,  we  must  first  represent  it  to  ourselves  in 
the  most  striking  and  most  attainable  case  —  that  is  to  say, 
in  the  human  consciousness.  Diminish  now  progressively  in 
imagination  the  degree  of  express  foresight  which  controls 
the  search  for  the  effect,  and  you  will  by  degrees  arrive  at 
that  obscure  and  dull  perception  of  which  Leibnitz  speaks, 
and  which  is  nothing  else  than  instinct  itself,  —  at  that  sort 
of  innate  somnambulism,  as  Cuvier  calls  it,  which  presides 
infallibly  over  the  actions  of  the  animal.  At  a  still  inferior 
stage  you  will  find  the  tendency  of  all  organized  matter  to 
co-ordinate  itself  conformably  to  the  idea  of  a  living  whole. 
The  reflecting  consciousness,  then,  does  not  exist,  in  fact, 
wherever  we  meet  or  think  we  meet  with  ends  in  nature ; 
but  only  wherever  we  suppose  such  ends,  we  cannot  prevent 
ourselves  from  conceiving  the  final  effect  as  imaged  before- 
iiand,  if  not  under  an  idealized  and  express  form,  at  least  in 
some  manner  in  the  agent  that  produces  it.  In  order  that  an 
act  may  be  called  a  final  cause,  all  the  series  of  phenomena 
required  to  produce  it  must  be  subordinated  to  it.  That  phe- 
nomenon which  is  not  yet  produced  governs  and  commands 
the  whole  series,  which  would  be  evidently  incomprehensible 
and  contrary  to  every  law  of  causality,  if  it  did  not  pre- 
exist in  some  fashion  and  in  an  ideal  manner  before  the  com- 
bination of  which  it  is  at  once  the  cause  and  the  result. 
Resuming  and  correcting  the  definition  given  above,  we  may 
say,  then,  that  the  final  cause,  as  given  us  in  experience,  is  an 
effect  if  not  foreseen  at  least  predetermined,  ^  and  which,  by 
reason  of  this  predetermifietion,  conditions  and  dominates 
the  series  of  phenomena  of  which  it  is  in  appearance  the 
result.  Thus  it  is  yet  once  more  an  act  which  may  be  con- 
sidered as  the  cause  of  its  own  cause.     Thus,  in  one  sense, 


1  Hegel  himself  thus  defines  finality:  das  Vovherhestimmte.  —  Phil,  de  la 
Nat.  §  366.  [The  word  finality  —  in  French  f)iaUt€~  is  used  here  and  tlu-ougli- 
out  this  work  not  in  its  ordinary  English  sense,  but  to  denote  the  fact,  belief, 
or  principle  of  final  causes.  —Note  by  Translator.'] 


4  PRELIMINARY  CHAPTER. 

the  eye  is  the  cause  of  sight ;  in  another  sense,  sight  is  the 
cause  of  the  eye.  We  shall  have  to  conceive,  then,  as  Kant 
has  said,  the  series  of  final  causes  as  a  reversal  of  the  series  of 
efficient  causes.  The  latter  proceeds  by  descent,  the  former 
by  ascent.  The  two  series  are  identical  (at  least  it  is  per- 
mitted to  suppose  so  a  priori},  but  the  one  is  the  inversion 
of  the  other.  The  mechanical  point  of  view  consists  in 
descending  the  first  of  these  two  series  (from  the  cause  to  the 
effect) ;  the  teleological  point  of  view,  or  that  of  final  causes, 
consists  in  ascending  it  again  (from  the  end  to  the  means). 
The  question  is,  Whereon  rests  the  legitimacy  of  this  regres- 
sive operation? 

It  is  known  that  all  schools  agree  in  admitting  certain 
maxims  or  truths,  called  primary  truths,  primary  or  funda- 
mental principles,  which,  according  to  some,  are  implanted 
a  priori  in  the  human  mind,  and,  according  to  others,  are  the 
fruit  of  an  experience  so  universal  as  to  be  practically  equiva- 
lent to  the  innate,  but  which  on  all  hands  are  recognised  as> 
so  evident  and  so  imperious  that  thought  is  absolutely  im- 
possible without  them.  These  are  such  as  the  principle  of 
identity,  the  principle  of  causality,  and  the  principle  of  sub- 
stance, the  principle  of  space,  and  the  principle  of  time.  The 
simplest  and  clearest  formulas  which  serve  to  express  them 
are  these :  '  Nothing  is  at  the  same  time,  and  considered 
under  the  same  point  of  view,  both  itself  and  its  contrary ; ' 
'  no  phenomenon  without  cause,  no  mode  without  substance  ; ' 
'  every  body  is  in  space,  every  event  takes  place  in  time.' 

The  question  we  have  to  resolve  is  this  :  Among  these  pri- 
mary truths  or  fundamental  principles,  must  we  albO  reckon, 
as  is  often  done,  another  principle  called  the  principle  of 
final  causes  ?  Is  there  a  principle  of  final  causes  ?  What  is 
it?  What  is  its  formula?  Does  it  form  one  of  those  neces- 
sary and  universal  principles  without  which  it  is  impossible  to 
think  ?     Or  may  it  only  bo  a  particular  case  of  one  of  them  ? 

Let  us  remark,  first,  that  men  are  not  well  agreed  even 


THE  PROBLEM.  & 

upon  the  formula  of  what  they  call  the  principle  of  final 
causes.  For  the  principle  of  causality  there  is  no  difficulty : 
'No  phenomenon  without  cause.'  By  analogy  we  should 
have  to  formulate  the  principle  of  final  causes  in  this  manner : 
'  Nothing  is  produced  without  design ;  every  being  has  an 
end.'  1  Aristotle  expressed  it  thus  :  '  Nature  makes  nothing^ 
in  vam.'  We  onh^  need  to  express  in  these  terms  the  prin- 
ciple of  final  causes  to  see  at  once  that  it  is  not  of  the  same 
kind  as  the  principle  of  causality.  Th.  Jouffroy,  when  ex- 
amining, in  his  Course  of  Natural  Right,  the  truths  on  which 
moral  order  reposes,  says :  '  The  first  of  these  truths  is  the 
principle  that  every  being  has  an  end.  Equal  to  the  princi- 
ple of  causality,  it  has  all  its  evidence,  all  its  universality, 
all  its  necessity,  and  our  reason  conceives  no  more  exception 
to  the  one  than  to  the  other.'  Despite  the  high  authority  of 
Jouffroy,  we  are  obliged  to  declare  that  the  principle  here 
set  forth,  namely,  that  '  every  being  has  an  end,'  appears  to 
us  to  have  neither  the  evidence  nor  the  necessity  of  the  prin- 
ciple of  causality,  namely,  that  '  all  that  is  produced  has  a 
cause.'  If  by  end  is  meant  a  certain  effect  resulting  necessa- 
rily from  a  certain  given  nature,  in  this  sense  every  being  has 
an  end,  for  every  being  necessarily  produces  what  is  con- 
formable to  its  nature;  but  if  by  end  is  meant  an  aim, for 
which  a  thing  has  been  made,  or  towards  which  it  tends,  it  is? 
not  self-evident  that  the  stone  has  an  end,  that  the  mineral 
has  one.  Doubtless,  for  him  who  regards  nature  as  the  work 
of  a  providence,  it  will  be  certain  that  all  has  been  created 
for  an  end,  and  even  the  pebble  will  not  have  been  made  in 
vain ;  but  then  the  principle  of  final  causes  is  no  more  than 
a  corollary  of  the  doctrine  of  providence  —  it  is  not  a  prin- 
ciple d  priori,  a  necessary,  universal,  first  principle.  The 
doctrine  of  a  universal  end  of  things,  flowing  from  the  doc- 
trine of  providence,  cannot,  then,  be  given  as  self-evident. 
We  must  insist  on  this  difference  between  the  principle  of 

1  To  say,  as  is  sometimes  said,  '  Every  means  supposes  an  end,'  would  be  a 
pure  tautology. 


<G  PRELIMINARY  CHAPTER. 

causality  and  the  principle  of  final  causes.  If  I  contemplate 
the  chain  of  the  Alps,  and  the  innumerable  strange  and  com- 
plicated forms  which  the  peaks  composing  that  chain  have 
taken,  the  law  of  causality  forces  me  to  admit  that  each  of 
them,  however  accidental  it  may  appear,  has  its  determinate 
and  precise  cause ;  but  I  am  in  no  way  forced  to  admit  that 
each  of  those  forms,  here  pointed,  there  sloped,  there  rounded, 
has  an  end  and  an  object.  Take  an  eruption  of  a  volcano  : 
each  stream  of  lava,  each  exhalation,  each  noise,  each  flash 
has  its  own  cause,  and  the  most  passing  of  these  phenomena 
could  be  determined  a  jyriori  by  him  who  knew  accurately  all 
the  causes  and  all  the  conditions  which  have  brought  about 
the  eruption ;  but  to  think  to  attribute  to  each  of  these 
phenomena  in  particular  a  precise  end  is  absolutely  impossible. 
For  what  end  is  such  a  stone  thrown  to  the  right  rather  than 
to  the  left  ?  Why  such  an  emanation  rather  than  such 
another?  These  are  questions  which,  in  fact,  no  one  asks. 
One  might  cite  a  thousand  other  examples :  Why,  to  what  end 
■do  the  clouds  driven  by  the  wind  take  such  a  form  rather  than 
such  another  ?  Why,  to  what  end  does  the  malady  called 
madness  produce  such  a  delusion  rather  than  such  another? 
To  what  end  has  one  monster  two  heads  and  another  none  at 
all  ?  There  are  a  thousand  such  cases,  in  which  the  human 
mind  seeks  causes  without  concerning  itself  about  ends.  I  do 
not  merely  say  that  it  ignores  them,  I  say  it  does  not  think 
of  them,  and  is  not  forced  to  suppose  them ;  while  as  to  the 
causes,  even  when  it  is  ignorant  of  them,  it  yet  knows  that 
they  exist,  and  it  believes  in  them  invincibly. 

Doubtless  the  human  mind  can  apply  the  idea  of  finality 
even  to  the  preceding  cases,  and,  for  example,  believe  that  it 
is  for  an  unknown  end  that  there  are  mountains,  volcanoes, 
monsters,  and  so  on.  I  do  not  deny  that  it  can,  I  say  only 
that  it  is  not  forced  to  it,  as  it  is  in  the  case  of  causality 
properly  so  called.  Finality  in  these  different  cases  is  for  it 
only  a  means  of  conceiving  things,  a  hypothesis  which  pleases 
and  satisfies  it,  a  subjective  point  of  view,  to  which  it  can 


THE   PROBLEM.  7 

abandon  itself,  as  it  can  refuse  to  do  so ;  or  else  the  con- 
sequence of  a  doctrine  which  is  believed  true.  On  the  other 
hand,  causality  is  a  necessary  law  of  the  mind,  an  objective 
law  of  all  phenomena  without  exception,  a  law  necessary, 
and  everywhere  verified  by  the  constant  reproduction  of  the 
phenomena  under  the  same  conditions  ;  in  a  word,  to  employ 
the  expression  of  Kant,  finality  in  the  examples  cited  is 
only  a  regulative  principle,  causality  is  always  a  constitutive 
principle. 

Besides,  even  when  we  suppose  that  all  the  great  phenom- 
ena of  nature  have  their  final  causes,  we  only  admit  it  for 
the  phenomenon  taken  as  a  whole,  but  not  for  each  of  its 
details.  For  example,  granting  that  there  must  be  volcanoes, 
.and  that  that  is  good,  there  will  necessarily  follow  eruptions, 
which  will  bring  about  a  thousand  particular  accidents ;  but 
has  each  of  these  accidents  therefore  its  final  cause  ?  It  is 
difficult  to  believe  it.  The  general  phenomenon  being  sup- 
posed useful,  the  causes  which  produce  it  must  be  endlessly  re- 
flected in  a  million  little  special  facts,  which  only  have  woith 
and  signification  in  so  far  as  they  make  part  of  the  whole,  but 
which  taken  in  themselves  are  only  effects,  and  not  ends. 

To  borrow  a  comparison  from  human  experience  :  when  by 
means  of  an  explosive  mixture  we  blow  up  masses  of  rock  for 
the  purpose  of  making  our  roads  and  railways,  evidently  the 
only  thing  which  can  be  called  an  end  is  the  general  phe- 
nomenon of  the  explosion ;  but  whether  this  explosion  break 
the  rock  into  a  thousand  pieces  or  into  two  thousand,  whether 
those  pieces  are  round,  square,  or  pointed,  whether  they  be 
hurled  to  the  left  or  to  the  right,  all  that  matters  little  to  the 
engineer.  These  details  only  interest  him  in  so  far  as  they 
might  affect  the  general  phenomenon,  or  bring  about  this  or 
that  misfortune  ;  but,  his  precautions  once  taken,  no  one  can 
say  that  such  an  effect,  taken  by  itself,  is  an  end  or  an  aim ; 
and  yet,  once  more,  each  of  these  accidents,  however  minute 
it  may  be,  has  a  cause. 

If  there  are  in  the  universe  a  great  number  of  phenomena 


8  PRELIMINARY   CHAPTER. 

which  do  not  suggest  in  any  manner  the  idea  of  an  end,  to 
compensate  for  this  there  are  others  which  rightly  or  wrongly 
call  forth  this  idea  imperiously  and  infallibly ;  such  are  the 
organs  of  living  beings,  and  above  all  of  the  superior  animals. 
Why  this  difference  ?  What  more  is  there  in  this  case  than 
in  the  previous  one?  If  the  principle  of  finality  were 
universal  and  necessary,  like  the  principle  of  causality,  would 
we  not  apply  it  everywhere  like  the  latter,  and  with  the  same 
certainty?  There  are  none  of  these  differences  as  regards 
efiSci^nt  causes.  In  all  cases  we  affirm  that  they  exist,  and 
we  affirm  it  equally.  There  are  no  phenomena  which  are 
more  evidently  effects  than  others.  We  know  the  cause  of 
them,  or  do  not  know  it ;  but,  known  or  unknown,  it  is  ;  and 
it  is  not  more  probable  in  this  case  than  in  that.  On  the 
other  hand,  even  those  who  affirm  that  there  is  finality  every- 
where, acknowledge  that  it  is  more  manifested  in  the  animal 
and  vegetable  kingdoms  than  in  the  mineral ;  and  if  one  were 
reduced  to  the  latter  kingdom,  and  man  were  to  forget  him- 
self, the  idea  of  finality  would  not,  perhaps,  present  itself  to 
the  mind.  One  may  see  from  this  how  much  finality  differs 
from  causality ;  the  latter  is  a  principle,  the  former  is  probably 
merely  the  consequence  of  an  induction. 

A  contemporary  philosopher  thinks,  like  Jouffroy,  that  the 
principle  of  finality  has  the  same  evidence  as  that  of  causality ; 
he  comprehends  both  together  in  one  and  the  same  formula. 
'  All  that  happens,'  says  he,  '  not  only  comes  from  somewhere, 
hut  also  goes  someivhither  '  ^  This  proposition  is  doubtless  in- 
disputable, only,  in  so  far  as  is  evident,  it  does  not  necessarily 
imply  finality;  and  reciprocally,  in  so  far  as  it  might  be 
understood  in  the  sense  of  finality,  it  would  no  longer  be 
evident.  It  is  certain  that  a  body  in  motion  goes  somewhere, 
but  is  the  terminus  of  that  motion  a  result  or  an  end?  That 
is  the  question.     Is  it  as  impelled  or  as  attracted  that  the 

1  Ravaisson,  Report  on  the  Philosophy  of  the  JVineteenth  Centurtj,  p.  239. 
This  principle  appears  to  be  translated  from  Plotinus  :  itavTi  tw  Ktvou/^eVu)  6ci  rt 

.aat    J7po5   o   K.i.vf'na.1.   {EnilCad,  V.  1.  6). 


THE  PROBLEM.  9 

body  goes  somewhere  ?  Or  if  it  be  impelled,  is  it  by  anotlier 
body,  or  by  a  will  which  has  an  aim?  All  that  remains  in 
suspense,  and  that  precisely  is  the  problem.  '  We  conceive 
as  necessary,'  says  the  same  author,  '  that  the  cause  includes, 
with  the  reason  of  the  commencement,  the  reason  also  of  the 
end  to  which  the  direction  tends.'  Again,  nothing  is  more 
true  than  this  proposition,  but  one  can  understand  it  as  well 
in  the  sense  of  Spinoza  as  in  the  sense  of  Aristotle ;  the 
question  always  remains,  whether  the  limit  of  the  direction 
is  contained  in  the  cause  as  a  consequence  or  as  an  aim, 
whether  it  is  a  logical  development  or  a  willed  foreordination. 
And  to  say  that  the  direction  tends  towards  an  end,  is  to  beg 
the  question. 

For  our  part,  we  admit,  with  Aristotle,  that  '  nature  does 
nothing  in  vain ; '  with  Jouffroy,  that '  every  being  has  an  end ; ' 
with  M.  Ravaisson,  '  that  every  motion  goes  somewhere.'  But 
these  are  only,  as  it  seems  to  us,  inductive  truths,  generaliza- 
tions from  experience.  Seeing,  as  we  do,  in  certain  definite 
cases,  very  evident  relations  of  means  and  ends,  or  which 
appear  such  to  us,  we  proceed  by  extension  to  others  which 
are  less  so,  and  thence  to  all  the  facts  of  nature,  in  virtue  of 
our  natural  tendency  to  generalize.  It  is  thus  Aristotle  formed 
the  maxim :  ouSer  ixaT-r^v ;  natural  history  having  shown  him 
a  considerable  number  of  facts  where  nature  has  evidently 
an  end,  he  believed  himself  warranted  to  formulate  that 
general  maxim  of  which  nature  had  furnished  him  with  such 
frequent  proofs. 

Finality  is  not,  then,  in  our  estimation  a  first  principle  ;  it  is 
a  law  of  nature,  obtained  by  observation  and  induction.^    Just 

1  It  will  be  objected  tliat  it  is  the  same,  according  to  the  empiric  school,  with 
causality.  But  even  supposing,  with  that  school,  that  the  principle  of  causality 
is  itself  a  last  generalization  of  experience,  there  would  still  remain  a  very  great 
difTerence  between  the  two  principles  —  namely,  that  as  regards  causality  every 
trace  of  the  primitive  induction  has  disappeared,  and  now  there  remains  only  a 
necessary  law  of  the  mind;  while  the  principle  of  finality  has  not  succeeded  in 
incorporating  itself  in  so  complete  a  manner  in  the  substance  of  thought;  it 
remains  matter  of  discussion,  which  is  not  the  case  with  the  law  of  causality, 
at  least  iu  its  application,  if  not  in  its  metaphysical  sense. 


y 


10  PRELIMINARY  CHAPTER. 

as  the  naturalists  admit  general  laws,  which  are,  as  they  say, 
rather  tendencies  than  strict  laws  ^  (for  they  are  always  more 
or  less  mixed  with  exceptions),  —  the  law  of  economy^  law  of 
division  of  labour,  law  of  connection,  law  of  correlation,  —  so 
there  is  a  law  of  finality  which  appears  to  embrace  all  the 
preceding  laws,  a  tendency  to  finality,  a  tendency  evident  in 
organized  beings,  and  which  we  suppose  by  analogy  in  those 
that  are  not. 

In  considering  finality  as  a  law  of  nature,  and  not  as  a 
rational  law  of  the  mind,  we  have  the  advantage,  if  we  do 
not  deceive  ourselves,  of  averting  the  general  prejudice  of  men 
of  science  against  final  causes.  Why  is  it  that  men  of  science 
show  themselves  so  opposed  to  final  causes  ?  It  is  because 
during  long  ages  the  principle  of  final  causes  has  been  made 
an  a  priori  principle,  which  it  has  been  sought  to  impose  upon 
science  as  much  as  the  principle  of  causality.  Regarding 
everything,  the  man  of  science  was  required  not  only  to  state 
its  cause,  but  also  its  end,  as  if  he  were  bound  to  know  it ; 
by  imposing  on  him  the  investigation  of  ends,  he  was  turned 
aside  from  the  investigation  of  causes.  This  is  the  yoke 
which  the  man  of  science  cannot  bear,  because  it  deprives 
him  of  the  liberty  of  inquiry.  But  if  finality,  in  place  of 
being  an  a  jjriori  law  of  the  mind,  is  simpl}-  a  tendenc}"  of 
nature,  what  prevents  men  of  science  from  admitting  such  a 
tendency,  since  they  admit  others  not  less  incomprehensible  ? 
And  even,  as  we  have  seen,  does  not  every  idea  of  tendency 
in  general  already  imply  finality  more  or  less  ? 

If  this  proposition,  '  Everything  has  an  end,'  is  only  an 
empirical  generalization,  more  or  less  legitimate,  it  is  evident 
it  will  not  avail  as  a  principle.  From  this  point  the  question 
changes  its  aspect.  Not  knowing  beforehand  that  everything 
has  an  end,  how  can  we  know  in  particular  tliat  such  a  tJiliu] 
is  an  end?  By  what  sign  do  we  recognise  that  anything  is 
an  end?  If  there  is,  then,  a  principle  of  final  causes,  it  is  not 
that  which  consists  in  saying  that  there  are  ends,  but  that 
1  Milne-Edwards,  Introduction  to  General  Zoology,  preface. 


THE   PROBLEM.  11 

which  would  teach  us  how  to  recognise  an  end,  and  how 
an  end  is  distinguished  from  a  result.  This  is  the  true 
problem.  To  affirm  an  end  is  to  affirm  a  certain  species  of 
cause :  in  what  conditions  are  we  entitled  to  affirm  this  kind 
of  cause  rather  than  another  ?  That  is  what  we  have  to  seek. 
The  affirmation  a  priori  of  finality  is  a  snare  of  the  slothful 
reason  (ignava  ratio).  The  problem  is  more  delicate,  and 
demands  more  deliberate  inquiries.  It  will  be  the  object  of 
this  treatise. 

Before  taking  in  hand  the  problem  in  the  terms  which  we 
have  just  stated,  let  us  again  mention,  in  order  to  show  their 
insufficiency,  and  to  determine  with  precision  the  meaning  of 
the  question,  certain  formulas  which  have  been  given  of  the 
principle  of  finality. 

Here  is,  for  instance,  how  Reid  expresses  and  formulates 
the  principle  of  final  causes  :  '  The  evident  marks  of  intel- 
ligence and  of  design  in  the  effect,  prove  a  design  and  an 
intelligence  in  the  cause.'  It  is  easy  to  see  that  there  is  not 
here  a  first  principle,  but  a  consequence  of  the  principle  of 
causality ;  it  is  a  particular  application  of  that  scholastic 
axiom:  'All  that  is  contained  in  the  effect  is  contained  in 
the  cause,'  —  a  principle  which  is  not  itself  free  from  all  diffi- 
culty. Besides,  Reid's  principle  is  expressed  in  a  form  which 
might  be  accused  of  tautology  ;  for  if  there  are  in  the  effect 
marks  of  intelligence,  it  is  a  matter  of  course  that  this  is 
the  effect  of  an  intelligence.  But  those  who  deny  the  conse- 
quence deny  precisel}^  that  those  marks  from  which  intelli- 
gence is  concluded  are  marks  of  intelligence ;  and  it  is  this 
that  has  to  be  proved. 

But  the  most  important  observation  to  be  made  on  Reid's 
principle  is,  that  the  affirmation  of  intelligence  is  only  a 
corollary  of  the  principle  of  final  causes,  but  is  not  that 
principle  itself.  When  I  shall  have  established  that  there 
are  ends  in  nature,  I  shall  thence  be  enabled  to  conclude 
that  nature  has  an  intelligent  cause  (yet  there  are  philoso- 
phers, like  Aristotle,  Hegel,  and  Schopenhauer,  who  separate 


12  PRELIMINARY  CHAPTER. 

design  from  intelligence)  ;  but  the  true  question  is  whetlier 
there  are  ends,  and  in  what  consist  those  marks  of  design 
which  shall  entitle  us  to  infer,  first,  finality  in  nature,  and 
then  an  intelligent  cause  of  that  finality.  All  these  so 
distinct  views,  and  which  yet  it  is  necessary  to  separate,  are 
confounded  in  the  axiom  of  Reid. 

These  distinctions,  on  the  other  hand,  are  clearly  indicated 
in  this  formula  of  Bossuet,  the  best  and  most  philosophical 
of  all  we  know :  '  All,'  says  he,  '  that  shows  order,  propor- 
tions well  chosen,  and  means  fit  to  produce  certain  effects, 
shows  also  an  express  end,  consequently  a  formed  design,  a 
regulated  intelligence,  and  a  perfect  art.'  ^  It  is  evident 
that,  in  Bossuet's  view,  the  principle  contains  two  parts  and 
two  distinct  affirmations  :  1st,  The  existence  of  an  express 
end,  whose  signs  or  marks  are  Avell-chosen  proportions ;  2d, 
The  affirmation  of  an  intelligence,  of  which  the  proof  is  de- 
rived from  the  existence  of  ends.  Design,  intelligence,  art, 
are  only  affirmed  as  corollaries  of  finality.  If  there  are  ends, 
is  there  an  intelligence  ?  This  question  has  to  be  debated 
with  the  advocates  of  an  unconscious  finality.  If  there  are 
ends,  by  what  are  they  recognised  ?  This  question  has  to  be 
debated  with  the  partisans  of  the  blind  mechanism  of  nature. 
Now,  those  two  questions  are  very  well  distinguished  by 
Bossuet.  Besides,  he  sees  clearly  that  the  difficulty  is  pre- 
cisely to  know  what  is  the  sign  of  finality.  He  does  not 
vaguely  say,  like  Jouffroy,  '  Every  being  has  an  end ; '  for  that 
is  what  is  in  question.  He  does  not  advance  a  tautology,  like 
Reid,  '  If  there  are  marks  of  intelligence,  there  is  intelligence.' 
But  he  says,  '  If  there  are  proportions  well  chosen,  proper  for 
certain  effects,  there  are  ends;'  and  further,  'If  there  are 
ends,  there  is  intelligence.'  The  formula,  then,  is  excellent, 
and  very  solid.  However,  one  might  criticise  some  of  its 
words.  Is  it  true,  for  instance,  that  order  always  implies  an 
end  ?  That  will  depend  on  the  sense  given  to  the  word  order. 
What  is  better  regulated  than  chemical  combinations  ?  '  Have 
1  Bossuet,  Knowledr/e  of  God  and  of  Oneself,  chap.  iv.  1. 


THE   PROBLEM.  13 

they  an  end  ?  That  is  what  we  do  not  know.  There  is  no 
order  more  rigorous  than  the  order  of  mechanics ;  yet  it  is  a 
question  whether  mechanics  belongs  to  the  domain  of  final 
causes.  I  do  not  wish  to  say  that  by  pressing  the  idea 
of  order  one  would  not  finish  by  eliciting  from  it  the  idea  of 
finality,  but  these  two  notions  are  not  equivalent  in  the  first 
instance.  Bossuet  says,  again,  that  all  that  shows  means 
proper  to  produce  certain  effects,  thereby  shows  an  express 
end.  One  might  accuse  him  here  of  tautology,  for  it  is  very 
true  that  the  means  suppose  the  end ;  but  why  ?  Because 
the  means  by  definition  is  that  which  serves  for  an  end,  so 
that  the  question  whether  there  are  ends  is  the  same  as  this, 
whether  there  are  means.  But  if  by  means  Bossuet  simply 
intends,  as  is  often  the  case,  causes  proper  to  produce  an 
effect,  then  the  principle  is  false,  for  such  causes  do  not  at 
all  prove  the  existence  of  ends.  For  instance,  the  combina- 
tion of  oxygen  and  hydrogen  is  quite  fit  to  produce  water :  it 
does  not  follow  that  nature  in  these  combinations  lias  had  for 
its  end  the  production  of  water :  that  remains  to  be  proved. 

Summing  up,  the  final  cause  cannot  be  laid  down  a  ^jriori 
as  a  necessary  condition  of  thought ;  it  must  be  sought  and 
established  by  analj^sis  and  discussion.  That  will  be  the 
object  of  this  work. 

This  inquiry  divides  itself  into  two  problems:  1st,  Is 
finality  a  law  of  nature  ?  2d,  What  is  the  first  cause  of  that 
law? 

These  two  questions  are  quite  distinct,  and  much  obscurity 
arises  from  having  confounded  them.  We  will  treat  them 
separately  in  two  different  books. 


BOOK    FIRST. 


THE    LAW    OF    FINALITY 


CHAPTER  I. 


THE   PRINCIPLE. 


TF  the  principle  of  final  causes  were  a  first  principle,  and 
-*-  a  jyriori,  like  the  principle  of  causality,  we  would  apply  it 
everywhere  and  in  all  circumstances ;  but  it  is  not  so.  In  a 
very  great  number  of  cases  phenomena  appear  to  us  to  be 
without  an  end,  or  at  least  do  not  call  forth  the  notion  of  an 
end;  in  other  cases,  again,  this  notion  is  produced  with  an 
imperious  and  irresistible  force.  Whence  comes  this  differ- 
ence ?  In  what  does  the  second  case  differ  from  the  first  ? 
By  what  do  we  recognise  that  certain  phenomena  have,  or 
appear  to  have,  an  end  ?  Who  warrants  us  to  qualif}"  them 
in  this  manner  ?  To  reply  to  this  question  will  be  to  demon- 
strate the  principle  of  finality. 

It  is  a  law  of  our  mind,  into  the  origin  and  metaphysical 
signification  of  which  we  do  not  inquire,  that  as  often  as  a 
phenomenon  appears  to  us  in  experience,  we  suppose  for  it  an 
anterior  condition,  which  we  call  its  cause  or  its  reason.'^  In 
whatever  manner  we  understand  the  cause,  —  whether  with 
some  we  see  in  it  a  power  to  act,  or  ■with  others  a  simple 
phenomenon  which  precedes  another,  — in  both  cases,  in  aU 
cases,  it  is  an  invincible  law  of  the  human  mind  to  affirm  tliat 
a  phenomenon  which  appears  in  time  supposes  something 
without  which  it  would  not  have  existed.  All  the  phenomena 
of  nature,  then,  are  linked  by  the  bond  of  cause  and  effect. 

However,  we  are  not  to  believe  that  all  these  phenomena 

1  The  distinction  has  been  made,  and  should  be  made,  between  the  cause 
and  reason  of  a  phenomenon  (see  A.  Fouillee,  Philosophy  of  Plato,  t.  ii.  p.  469); 
but  this  distinction  is  useless  here.  It  suffices  us  to  understand  the  idea  of 
cause  as  it  is  understood  in  the  sciences  —  namely,  that  which  is  required  for 
the  explanation  of  «,  phenomenon. 

17 


18  BOOK  I.   CHAPTER  I. 

form  a  single  indefinite  chain,  in  which  each  plienomenon 
would  come  to  occupy  a  place  in  its  turn,  and  where  there 
would  onl}^  be  room  for  a  single  phenomenon  at  a  time.  No ; 
at  one  and  the  same  moment  there  is  an  infinite  number  of 
phenomenal  series,  which  take  place  at  all  points  of  the  globe 
and  of  the  universe.  While  we  are  here,  at  Paris,  and  the 
innumerable  actions  which  constitute  the  life  of  a  great  city 
take  place,  at  the  same  time  there  occur  at  London,  at  New 
York,  and  at  the  antipodes  corresponding  series  of  analogous 
actions.  In  one  single  town,  each  house,  each  street,  each 
man  i^  the  theatre  of  particular  scenes,  infinitely  diversified. 
These  simultaneous  phenomenal  series  are  sometimes  parallel,, 
without  immediate  mixture  with  each  other,  and  sometimes 
oblique,  intersecting  and  traversing  each  other,  and  mingling 
their  waves.  Representing  these  phenomenal  series  by  lines, 
we  shall  call  the  points  where  they  meet  points  of  coinci- 
dence, and  the  phenomena  which  result  from  their  combina- 
tion we  shall  call  complex. 

In  certain  cases  it  may  happen  that  this  meeting  of  serial 
lines  is  determined  beforehand  by  the  nature  of  things.  For 
example,  the  flux  and  reflux  of  the  sea,  and  the  changes  of 
the  tides,  coincide  in  a  constant  manner  with  the  movements 
of  the  moon  and  the  changes  of  the  earth  in  relation  to  tlie 
sun ;  but  it  is  not  always  so. 

It  sometimes  occurs  —  often,  even — that  two  series  of 
phenomena  happen  to  meet  together,  yet  without  our  being^ 
able  to  say  that  they  have  any  action  upon  each  other ;  and 
it  is  even  a  pleasure  to  our  mind  to  find  out  what  will 
happen  in  this  case.^  For  instance,  if,  in  the  game  of  rouge- 
et-noir^  I  bet  that  the  black  will  win,  and  it  wins  accordingly, 
it  is  clear  that  my  desire  and  my  word  could  not  have  had 
any  influence  on  the  winning  of  one  colour  or  the  other,  and 
likewise  that  the  arrangement  of  the  cards,  which  I  did  not 
know,  could  not  have  had  any  influence  on  the  choice  I  have 
made.     In  this  case  two  series  of  facts,  absolutely  independ- 

1  The  game  of  cross  purposes  corresponds  to  this  disposition  of  the  mind. 


THE   PRINCIPLE.  19 

eut  of  each  other,  have  happened  to  coincide  with  each  other, 
iuid  to  harmonize,  without  any  mutual  influence.  This  kind 
of  coincidence  is  what  is  called  chance;  and  it  is  upon  the 
very  uncertainty  of  this  coincidence  that  the  pleasure,  and, 
at  tlie  same  time,  the  terrible  temptation,  of  games  of  hazard 
rest. 

It  is  right,  in  a  sense,  to  say  that  there  is  no  chance — that 
chance  is  a  Avord  void  of  sense,  invented  by  our  ignorance. 
Doubtless,  if  chance  be  considered  as  an  actual  entity, — as  a 
sort  of  mysterious  and  jealous  divinity,  which,  hidden  behind 
I  know  not  what  cloud,  blindly  controls  the  threads  of  our 
destinies,  —  suck  a  cause  does  not  exist.  No;  chance  is  not 
a  cause,  but  it  is  the  coincidence  of  causes,^  —  it  is  an  entirely 
external  relation,  but  one  none  the  less  real,  between  inde- 
pendent phenomena.  At  every  moment  we  employ  chance 
to  explain  mysterious  phenomena.  Without  wishing  here  to 
solve  the  so  delicate  question  of  presentiments,  we  may  be 
permitted  to  suppose  that  in  many  cases  the  success  of  a  pre- 
sentiment is  only  the  fortuitous  coincidence  of  two  series  of 
independent  phenomena.  How  many  a  time  has  one  had 
presentiments  wliich  have  led  to  nothing !  but  does  a  single 
one  happen  to  coincide  with  the  fact,  the  imagination  is 
struck  for  the  whole  life.     These  are  fortuitous  coincidences, 


1  See  Cournot,  Diet,  des  sciences  philosophiques,  art.  'Hazard:'  'Chance  is 
the  combination  of  several  systems  of  causes  which  are  developed  each  in  its 
own  series  independently  of  the  others.'  The  views  developed  by  M.  Cournot 
on  chance,  whether  in  this  article  or  in  his  other  writings,  have  been  very  use- 
ful to  us.  —  M.  Ch.  Thurot  has  objected  {Revue  critique)  that,  accordiug  to 
Aristotle,  there  was  no  hazard  but  in  relation  to  man;  but  that  there  is  none  in 
nature.  I  believe  that  what  Aristotle  means  to  say  is,  that  there  is  no  chance 
(rvx'n)  but  in  relation  to  man,  but  I  do  not  believe  that  he  denies  that  there  may 
be  the  spontaneous  and  fortuitous  in  nature.  This  is  what  he  means  by  t6 
auTOfiaTor,  to  o-v/u^e/SijKo?,  to  a-n'o  crv.ajrTujuaTo; ;  and  he  shows  precisely  as  wc  do  our- 
selves that  all  that  is  constant  cannot  be  the  product  of  chance.  Besides,  that 
Aristotle  admits  on  occasion  the  jjossibility  of  chance,  for  nature  as  for  man, 

appears  from  the  following  text:  'Eo-n  S'  eVeica  tou  ova.  re  anh  Siavoia?  av  irpaxSdri 
Kal  o<ra  oiTro   <})v<Teu>^,      To.   6e   TOiauTa  OTav   Kara   o'UnjSe^TjKOT  y€vr)Tai,   anii  rv\r)';   d>aniti'  eivai 

(Berlin  ed.  296,  p.  21);  and  farther  on:  'It  is  not  a  chance,  nor  a  fortuitous 
coincidence,  if  it  rains  in  winter,  but  if  it  rains  when  the  sun  is  in  the  constel- 
lation of  the  Dog.  It  is  not  a  chance  that  there  is  great  heat  in  the  dog  days, 
but  that  there  is  in  winter.' 


20  BOOK  I.   CHAPTER  I. 

external,  and  without  necessary  connection,  which  one  ex- 
presses b}"  sajdng  that  they  are  the  effect  of  chance.  Again, 
without  wishing  to  trench  upon  the  so  difficult  question  of 
magnetic  clairvoyance,  we  may  be  allowed  to  think  that  in 
many  cases  chance  has  something  to  do  with  it,  —  the  talent 
of  the  somnambulist  seeks  to  limit  that  part,  by  trying  to 
divine  through  some  indications,  or  by  resting  on  vague 
generalities.  To  have  enabled  certain  false  sciences  —  for 
example,  judicial  astrology  or  other  deeply-rooted  prejudices 
—  to  subsist  so  long,  it  is  evident  that  some  fortunate  coinci- 
dences must  have  authorized  in  a  certain  measure  those  arbi- 
trar}'  inductions  which  have  encumbered  at  all  periods  the 
imagination  of  men. 

Thus,  in  the  case  which  we  call  chance  or  coincidence  of 
causes,  the  product  which  is  the  effect  of  it  needs  no  other 
explanation  than  that  two  series  of  phenomena  have  met  and 
have  concurred  to  produce  it.^  It  suffices  that  each  of  the- 
phenomena  of  which  this  result  is  composed  is  explained  by 
its  respective  causes ;  the  jDrinciple  of  causality  is  sufficiently 
satisfied  by  this  double  or  multiplied  explanation.  Suppose,, 
on  the  one  hand,  that  a  carriage  is  dragged  along  with  the 
utmost  rapiditj^  by  a  horse  which  has  run  off;  suppose  that, 
on  the  other,  a  man,  preoccupied  by  his  thoughts,  and  called 
to  an  appointment  by  an  affair  of  urgency,  hurries  on  without 
thinking,  and  is  overthrown  by  the  carriage  :  evidently  I  have 
no  need  of  any  particular  cause  to  explain  his  fall,  although 
clearly  that  fall  was  not  necessarily  connected  with  the  blind 
rush  of  the  horse.  But,  on  the  one  hand  that  running  off, 
on  the  other  the  preoccupation,  are  the  two  causes  which, 
without  meaning  it,  have  produced  that  complex,  unexpected 

1  I  find  tlie  same  view  in  an  estimable  but  little  known  pliilosoiilier  of  the- 
IStli  century  (Boullier,  Discours  sur  les  causes  finales,  Amsterdam  1759,  p.  28): 
'  The  word  chance  designates  less  the  ignorance  of  causes  than  it  marks  that 
one  ought  not  to  seek  a  special  cause  for  certain  concovrses  of  effects,  which 
have  each  apart  their  particular  causes.  It  is  chauce  that  makes  two  faces 
resemble  and  two  minds  agree;  that  is  to  say,  that  each  of  the  two  effects  liaa 
.  its  cause,  and  that  there  is  no  need  of  a  third  to  put  between  them  the  resem- 
blance or  the  eqvality  we  observe  in  them.' 


THE   PRINCIPLE.  21 

effect.  Doubtless  by  occupying  a  very  elevated  point  of 
view,  one  may  think  that  that  event  has  been  prepared  and 
foreseen  by  the  will  of  Providence,  and  that  is  usually  what 
one  supposes  when  it  concerns  the  great  ones  of  this  world ; 
as  for  the  others,  one  is  readily  satisfied  with  proximate 
causes.  But  without  in  any  manner  contesting  the  idea  of 
a  particular  providence,  I  will  say  that  that  is  a  very  com- 
plex and  altogether  derivative  idea,  which  ought  not  to  ap- 
pear in  the  analysis  in  which  we  are  engaged. 

Let  us  say,  then,  that  with  regard  to  coincidences  that  are 
rare  and  not  numerous,  whose  component  parts  themselves 
are  not  numerous,  and  the  coincidence  of  whose  parts  is  the 
result  of  daily  experience  (like  the  meeting  of  two  carriages 
rushing  against  each  other  ^),  in  all  these  cases  we  have  noth- 
ing to  ask  except,  what  are  the  causes  which  have  acted  on 
each  side?  But  when  those  coincidences  are  repeated  (as 
if  it  happened  that  a  coachman  had  often  the  misfortune  to 
crush  a  passer-by),  when  they  become  more  numerous  or  more 
complicated,  and  require  a  greater  number  of  causes,  it  no 
longer  suffices  to  refer  each  of  the  elementary  phenomena  to 
its  respective  cause  ;  it  becomes  necessary,  further,  to  explain 
the  coincidence  itself,  or  the  multiplicity  of  coincidences. 
The  more  frequent  the  coincidences,  the  more  numerous  their 
component  elements,  the  more  our  astonishment  increases, 
and  the  less  satisfied  are  we  to  see  the  coincidences  explained 
by  chance.  If,  for  instance,  in  passing  along  a  street  I  see  a 
stone  loosen  and  fall  at  my  side,  I  will  not  be  astonished,  and 
the  phenomenon  will  sufficiently  explain  itself  in  my  eyes  by 
the  law  of  gravitation,  —  a  law  the  effect  of  which  has  here 
coincided  with  the  effect  of  a  psychological  law  which  has 
made  me  pass  that  way.  But  if  every  day,  at  the  same  hour, 
the  same  phenomenon  is  reproduced,  or  if  at  one  and  the  same 
moment  it  takes  place  from  different  sides  at  once,  —  if  stones 

1  One  must  still  further  suppose  a  town  where  there  are  many  carriages  and 
much-frequented  streets,  which  will  greatly  diminish  the  element  of  chance.  It 
will,  for  instance,  be  much  greater  in  a  collision  of  two  vessels  on  the  sea. 


22  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  I. 

are  thrown  against  me  from  several  different  directions,  —  it 
will  no  longer  suffice  me  to  say  that  the  stones  fall  in  virtue 
of  the  laws  of  gravitation,  but  I  will  seek  some  other  cause  to 
explain  the  coincidence  of  their  fall. 

Not  only  common  sense,  but  science  also  continually  makes 
use  of  this  principle  —  namely,  that  the  repetition  or  the 
multiplicity  of  coincidences  among  phenomena  is  itself  a 
phenomenon  which  must  have  its  own  cause.  I  shall  give 
some  examples  of  this.  It  is  known  that  shells  have  been  ■ 
found  on  the  tops  of  mountains,  and  Voltaire  is  known  to 
have  explained  the  presence  of  those  shells  by  the  passage 
of  pilgrims  going  to  Jerusalem,  who  used  to  carry  shells  in 
their  hats.  On  this  hypothesis,  the  presence  of  those  shells 
on  the  Alps  would  be  purely  fortuitous.  On  the  one  hand, 
the  pilgrims  proceeding  to  Jerusalem,  on  the  other,  the  Alps 
being  their  natural  road,  it  is  not  astonishing  that  these  two 
€auses  coincided;  and  one  of  the  accidental  effects  of  this 
coincidence  might  have  been  the  dropping  and  leaving  of 
some  shells.  This  explanation  would  suffice  if  there  had 
only  been  a  small  number  of  them.  But  the  number  of 
them  is  so  great  that  the  explanation  proposed  by  Voltaire 
does  not  suffice ;  for  what  is  to  be  done  is  not  to  explain 
how  one  shell  came  to  be  found  on  the  Alps,  but  how  heaps 
of  shells  are  met  with  there.  It  is  the  number  of  the  coin- 
•cidences  which  science  ought  here  to  explain,  and  this  she 
does  by  saying  that  it  is  not  by  chance  that  those  shells  are 
found  on  the  mountains,  but  by  a  determinate  cause,  which 
is  the  presence  of  the  sea  in  elevated  regions.  For  a  like 
reason  the  presence  of  the  elephants  found  amid  the  ices 
of  the  north  is  a  proof,  according  to  Buffon,  of  the  revolu- 
tions of  climate  which  have  taken  place  in  those  countries. 
'  The  vast  quantity  of  them  that  has  been  already  found  in 
those  almost  desert  lands,  where  no  one  seeks  them,  suffices 
to  demonstrate  that  it  is  neither  hy  a  single  or  several  accidents, 
nor  at  one  and  the  same  time,  that  several  individuals  of 
this  species  have  been  found  in  those  countries  of  the  north. 


THE  PRINCIPLE.  23 

but  that  it  is  a  case  of  absolute  necessity  that  that  species 
existed  there  at  one  time,  subsisted  and  multiplied,  as  it 
does  at  the  present  time  in  tropical  countries.'  ^ 

Example  second.  In  recent  times  the  phenomenon  of 
shooting-stars  has  been  much  studied.  Now,  observation 
has  established  that  this  especially  takes  place  at  certain 
periods  of  the  year,  in  August  and  November.  At  these 
periods  the  falling  stars  are  so  numerous  that  they  have 
been  compared  to  rain,  and  are  called  heavy  sJiowers.  The 
natural  philosophers  and  astronomers  have  not  regarded  as 
an  indifferent  circumstance  this  specially  abundant  produc- 
tion of  the  phenomenon  at  a  determinate  period.  They 
have  therefore  imagined  that  at  this  period  of  the  year  the 
earth  crosses  a  vast  ring  composed  of  asteroids,  which, 
drawn  into  the  terrestrial  orbit  by  attraction,  are  precipi- 
tated towards  the  earth.  Besides,  numerous  showers  hav- 
ing coincided  in  these  recent  times  with  the  absence  of  an 
expected  comet,  the  comet  of  Bi^la,  it  has  been  supposed 
that  they  were  the  fragments  of  it.  Whatever  be  the  worth 
of  these  hypotheses,  it  is  evident  that  they  have  their  reason 
in  that  law  of  our  mind  which  requires  of  us  not  only  a 
cause  for  each  particular  phenomenon,  but  also  for  the 
agreement  and  coincidence  of  phenomena.^ 

Considerations  of  the  same  kind  have  brought  astronomers 
to  think  that  the  stars  are  not  cast  by  chance  over  the 
extent  of  the  firmament,  but  that  they  form  groups  and  sys- 
tems, and  are  in  a  reciprocal  dependence.  Arago,  in  his 
Popular  Astronomy^  explains  to  us  this  mode  of  reasoning : 

'  Every  one  will  understand,'  says  he,  '  that  in  examin- 
ing the  probability  that  stars  scattered  through  the  firma- 
ment without  any  rule  will  appear  in  groups  of  two, — that 
this   probability,  we    say,  will   be  so  much  the  less  as  the 

1  Natural  History :  '  Epochs  of  Nature.' 

2  Another  familiar  example  is  that  furnished  in  arithmetic  by  the  proof  of 
addition.  This  proof  consists  in  recommencing  the  operation  in  the  opposite 
lurection,  that  is,  from  top  to  bottom.  It  rests  then  on  the  small  probability 
oi  a  coincidence  of  error  in  the  inversion  of  the  data. 


24  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  I, 

groups  in  question  are  to  have  tlie  less  dimensions.  It  is, 
in  fact,  as  if  one  calculated  the  chance  that  in  throwing  a 
certain  number  of  grains  of  wheat  on  a  chess-board,  they 
shall  be  found  united  in  the  squares  by  groups  of  two ;  the 
chances  must  evidently  diminish  along  with  the  dimensions 
of  these  squares  in  the  proposed  problem.  The  grains  of 
wheat  are  stars,  the  chess-board  is  the  firmament.  The 
squares  for  Herschel's  first  class  are  spaces  of  at  most  four 
seconds  in  diameter ;  for  the  fourth  class,  the  dimensions  of 
the  squares  ascend  to  thirty-two  seconds.  On  the  hypothe- 
sis of  an  absolute  independence  between  all  the  stars  which 
are  scattered  like  seed  over  the  heavens,  the  first  class  of 
double  stars  would  be  much  less  numerous  than  the  second, 
the  third,  and,  above  all,  the  fourth.  But  the  case  is  exactly 
the  contrary.  Thus,  then,  we  are  brought  by  simple  con- 
siderations of  probabilities  to  recognise  that  the  stars,  which 
are  neighbours  to  each  other,  are  not  so  merely  in  appear- 
ance, that  is  to  say,  by  an  effect  of  optics  or  of  perspective, 
but  that  they  indeed  form  systems.'  ^ 

The  same  principle,  the  same  need  of  the  mind,  conducted 
Laplace  to  his  celebrated  hypothesis  on  the  origin  of  our  solar 
system.  Starting  from  this  consideration,  which,  besides,  had 
already  struck  Newton,  Kant,  and  Buffon,  —  namely,  that 
all  the  stars  which  compose  that  system  have  their  motion, 
whether  of  rotation  or  of  revolution,  in  the  same  direction 
(from  east  to  west),  which  yields,  Arago  tells  us,  forty-three 
motions  co-ordinated  in  the  same  direction  ;  and  that,  besides, 
all  those  stars  are  found  placed  nearly  in  the  plane  of  the 
ecliptic,  —  Laplace  thought  that  such  an  arrangement  could 
not  be  the  effect  of  chance,  and  must  have  a  determinate 
cause.  Buffon  had  already  thought  so,  and  had  tried  to  ex- 
plain our  system  by  the  hypothesis  of  a  comet  having  fallen  on 
the  sun,  and  whose  pieces,  becoming  planets,  had  been  drawn 
by  the  solar  attraction.  Kant,  in  his  Natural  History  of  the 
Heavens,  likewise  proposed  a  hypothesis  to  explain  the  same 
1  Arago,  Popular  Astronomy,  Book  X.  chap.  xix. 


THE  PRINCIPLE.  25 

phenomena ;  and  this  hypothesis  is  analogous  to  that  of  La- 
place. The  latter,  as  is  known,  thought  he  solved  the  problem 
by  supposing  that  the  planets  originally  made  part  along  with 
the  sun  of  one  and  the  same  nebula^  actuated  by  a  rotatory  mo- 
tion, which,  being  broken  in  consequence  of  refrigeration  (a 
circumstance  which  has  become  doubtful  since  the  new  theo- 
ries on  heat),  would  thus  have  given  birth  to  distinct  bodies, 
actuated  by  the  same  motion  as  the  primitive  nebula.  And 
thus  the  prodigy  of  forty-three  motions  co-ordinated  in  the 
same  direction  would  be  explained  in  the  most  natural  manner 
by  the  partition  of  the  primitive  motion.  Whatever  may  be 
the  intrinsic  value  of  this  explanation,  the  essential  lines  of 
which  still  endure  even  now,  the  chief  point  to  notice  is  that 
in  this  case,  as  in  those  preceding,  every  co-ordination,  every 
repeated  coincidence,  is  always  considered  by  men  of  science 
as  calling  for  a  special  explanation.  Supposing  that  we  do 
not  admit  this  principle,  namely,  that  the  frequency  of  coinci- 
dences between  phenomena  is  itself  a  phenomenon  which 
must  have  its  cause,  none  of  the  preceding  discoveries  or 
hypotheses  would  have  been  made.  Given  to  explain  the 
presence  of  shells  on  a  mountain,  the  chance  passage  of  a 
pilgrim  suffices  for  it ;  given  the  fall  of  a  shooting-star,  the 
chance  meeting  of  the  earth  with  an  asteroid  is  enough ;  given 
any  arrangement  whatever  of  stars  in  the  heavens,  of  planets 
in  dVir  system,  the  same  general  unknown  cause,  called  the 
initial  cause  by  men  of  science,  can  explain  that  distribution. 
It  is,  on  the  other  hand,  because  it  has  not  been  believed 
that  a  regular  arrangement  could  be  the  effect  of  chance,  that 
men  have  been  led  to  these  discoveries  or  hypotheses  —  name- 
ly, the  presence  of  the  sea  on  high  mountains,  the  periodic 
meeting  with  a  ring  of  asteroids,  the  arrangement  of  the 
stars  in  groups  and  systems,  the  division  of  a  primitive 
nebula.,  and  so  on.  What  is  explained  by  these  hypotheses 
is  not  a  certain  special  phenomenon,  but  a  concordance  or  repe- 
tition of  phenomena. 

Let  us  add,  that  induction  itself,  which  has  so  much  em- 


26  ,  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  I. 

barrassed  logicians,  has  no  other  principle  than  that  which  we 
have  just  enounced :  any  constant  repetition  of  phenomena 
must  have  a  constant  and  determinate  cause,  and  cannot  be 
the  effect  of  chance  ;  which  we  translate  by  saying,  it  is  a  law 
of  nature.  What  is  the  difference  between  this  certain  propo- 
sition: Water  boils  at  a  hundred  degrees^  [centigrade]  ;  and 
this  other  proposition  :  An  eclipse  is  a  presage  of  public 
calamities?  The  difference  is,  that  in  the  first  case  the 
coincidence  of  the  two  phenomena  is  constant  and  without 
exception ;  and  that,  in  the  second  case,  the  coincidence  does 
not  always  occur.  Now,  chance  may  well  bring  about  some- 
times, and  even  often,  a  coincidence  between  an  eclipse  and 
an  event  so  frequent  as  public  misfortunes  are ;  but  reason 
refuses  to  admit  that  chance  brings  about  a  coincidence  that 
is  constant  and  without  exception.  That  coincidence  itself 
must  have  its  raison  d^Stre ;  the  reason  is,  that  the  one  of 
those  phenomena  is  the  cause  of  the  other,  or  else  that  the 
two  phenomena  have  a  common  cause .^ 

However  important  the  principle  which  we  have  just 
established  may  be  for  the  solution  of  the  problem  which  we 
have  proposed  to  ourselves,  yet  we  must  not  believe  it  is  the 
very  solution  which  we  are  seeking. 

In  effect,  in  the  examples  cited,  we  see  a  certain  co-ordi- 
nation indeed,  a  harmony,  a  frequenc}^  of  coincidences;  but 
we  do  not  yet  see  final  causes.  One  is  too  much  disposed  to 
believe  in  general  that  there  is  no  medium  between  chance 
and  finality,  and  yet  it  is  there  precisely  that  the  nodus  and 
difficulty  of  the  problem  are  found.  It  is  certainly  not  by 
chance  that  there  are  shells  on  the  Alps  ;  but  for  what  end 
are  they  there  ?  what  purpose  do  they  serve  ?  That  is  what  is 
not  apparent.  We  shall,  therefore,  have  sufficiently  explained 
their  existence  by  determining  the  physical  cause  which  has 

1  That  is  to  say,  in  the  case  of  water  boiling,  the  thermometric  column  will 
always  rise  to  a  certain  level,  called  by  definition  100  degrees.  We  make  this 
remark  becavise  the  example  cited  has  been  accused,  wrongly  we  think,  of 
tautology. 

2  See  the  appendix,  Dissertation  I.,  The  Problem  of  Induction. 


THE   PRINCIPLE.  27 

brought  them  there,  and  this  cause  is  the  presence  of  the  sea. 
It  is  not  by  chance  that  the  meteoric  stones  fall  at  a  certain 
period  of  the  year ;  but  why  and  to  what  end  do  they  fall  ? 
This  is  what  no  one  could  tell,  and  no  one  thinks  of  it.  It 
suffices  to  have  explained  the  frequency  of  the  falls  by  the 
presumed  meeting  with  a  chain  of  little  stars.  It  is  not  by 
chance  that  the  stars  are  concentrated  in  certain  points  of  the 
sky  more  than  in  others,  or  that  the  planets  revolve  in 
the  same  direction  as  the  sun,  or  in  the  same  plane  as  the 
ecliptic ;  but  to  what  end  is  that  so,  and  has  it  an  end  at  all  ? 
This  is  what  is  not  asked,  or  at  least  it  is  permitted  not  to 
ask  it.  If  there  has  been  found  a  suffi.cient  physical  cause  to 
explain  these  remarkable  arrangements,  it  seems  as  if  there 
were  nothing  more  to  seek.  Such  is  at  least  the  first  appear- 
ance of  things,  and  perhaps  we  will  find  later  that  it  is  only 
an  appearance ;  ^  meanwhile  nothing  hitherto  shows  us  a 
finality,  and  if  there  were  not  other  facts  in  nature,  perhaps 
one  would  not  go  farther. 

Still,  while  quite  recognising  that  the  preceding  principle  is 
not  yet  the  principle  of  final  causes,  let  us  not  think  that  we 
have  not  made  an  important  step  towards  the  solution  of  our 
problem.  We  have,  in  fact,  obtained  and  established  this 
result,  that  the  human  mind  requires  a  cause  not  only  in  order 
to  explain  phenomena,  that  is  to  say,  that  which  strikes  the 
senses,  but  also  in  order  to  explain  what  does  not  strike 
the  senses,  namely,  the  order  of  the  phenomena.  When  it  is 
said,  '  No  phenomenon  without  cause,'  one  does  not  exhaust 
the  force  of  the  principle  of  causality ;  for  the  order  of  the 
phenomena  is  not  a  phenomenon.  That  order  is  only  grasped 
by  the  mind ;  it  is  an  intelligible  relation  between  the  phe- 
nomena, of  which,  however,  we  seek  the  explanation  quite  as 
much  as  of  the  phenomena  themselves.  Take  the  fall  of  a 
stone,  it  is  explained  by  the  law  of  gravitation ;  let  there  be 
a  second  fall,  it  is  explained  by  the  same  law.  But  let  there 
be  a  hundred   falls   occurring   at  the    same   moment   from 

1  See  in  the  sequel,  chap,  vi.,  Mechanism  and  Finality. 


28  BOOK   I.   CHAPTER   I. 

opposite  directions  in  space,  although  there  is  in  this  case 
only  a  hundred  phenomena  of  the  same  order,  and  nothing 
more,  for  the  senses,  yet  these  hundred  falls  will  no  longer 
admit  of  being  exj)lained  by  the  repetition  a  hundred  times 
over  of  one  and  the  same  cause ;  and  a  mind  which  should 
not  be  capable  of  remarking  this  agreement  of  phenomena, 
and  which  should  continue  to  explain  them  indefinitely  by  the 
same  cause,  would  on  that  very  account  appear  to  us  struck 
with  imbecility.^  But  yet  one  more ;  what  is  there  here  more 
than  in  a  hundred  separate  falls  ?  Nothing  but  their  conver- 
gence or  simultaneity  —  that  is  to  say,  something  intellectual. 

Thus  the  invisible  agreement  of  the  phenomena  behoves 
itself  to  be  explained  like  each  visible  phenomenon  taken 
separately ;  this  co-ordination  is  an  effect  which  must  have 
its  cause.  For  example,  the  geometrical  form  which  minerals 
take  in  crystallizing  may  not,  indeed,  reveal  any  final  cause ; 
but  no  one  will  venture  to  say  that  this  geometric  arrange- 
ment is  an  indifferent  fact  of  which  it  is  useless  to  seek  the 
cause,  and  that  it  is  by  chance  and  by  a  simple  coincidence 
that  the  molecules  of  such  a  mineral  always  happen  to  arrange 
themselves  under  the  form  of  a  hexahedron,  of  a  dodecahe- 
dron, for  that  which  happens  in  a  constant  manner  cannot 
be  the  effect  of  a  mere  accident. 

However,  in  order  to  advance  farther,  and  from  the 
mechanical  to  pass  to  the  teleologieal  combination,  we  must 
invoke  new  considerations. 

Among  the  phenomena  of  nature  which  come  under  ex- 
perience, there  are  those  which  only  urge  the  mind  to  the 
investigation  of  their  efficient  causes  —  that  is  to  say,  which 
invite  us  to  trace  backwards  the  series  of  the  phenomena  until 
one  meets  the  decisive  circumstance  called  cause,  whence  the 


1  It  would  be  with  it  as  with  that  man  of  whom  Gassendi  speaks,  who,  half- 
asleep,  and  hearing  four  o'clock  strike,  said,  This  clock  is  mad;  lo,  four  times  ia 
succession  it  has  struck  one  o'clock.  The  man  had  not  force  of  mind  enough  to 
reflect  that  four  times  one  o'clock  make  four  o'clock.  Those  who  explain  the 
world  by  a  fortuitous  concourse  of  atoms  give  evidence  of  a  power  of  synthesis 
about  equal  to  this. 


THE   PRINCIPLE.  29 

whole  series  proceeds  (except  we  ascend  from  this  circum- 
stance itself  to  other  anterior  circumstances).  As  to  the  last 
phenomenon,  it  seems  itself  to  be  the  termination  of  a  series, 
and  the  mind  feels  no  need  to  seek  the  consequence  of  it.  A 
stone  falls,  for  example ;  a  volcano  makes  an  eruption ;  thunder 
bursts,  and  ravages.  When  once  the  phenomenon  has  taken 
place,  with  its  immediate  consequences,  it  seems  that  all  is 
finished  ;  we  ask  ourselves  how  it  has  been  produced.  But 
the  cause  found,  the  mind  declares  itself  satisfied,  and  the 
phenomenon  which  has  just  passed  before  us,  though  it  were 
complicated  like  the  eruption  of  a  volcano,  a  storm,  a  deluge, 
has  not  any  precise  and  determinate  bond  with  the  future  ;  it 
seems  to  be  in  itself  entirely  finished,  and  only  to  have  relation 
with  the  past  of  which  it  is  the  effect. 

Without  doubt  there  is  here,  I  acknowledge,  a  certain 
illusion,  for  no  phenomenon  of  the  universe  is  without  some 
relation  to  the  future  as  well  as  to  the  past ;  and  Leibnitz  has 
rightly  said  that  the  future  can  be  read  in  the  past;  and  that 
the  present  is  big  with  the  future.  In  this  sense  it  is  certain 
that  no  phenomenon  is  absolutely  finished.  The  waves  which 
happen  to  beat  upon  a  steep  shore  produce  a  fall  of  rocks, 
which,  broken  at  length  by  the  effect  of  these  same  waves, 
become,  little  by  little,  sand  fit  for  certain  forms  of  vegetation, 
and  so  on  ad  infinitum.  Each  plienomenon,  whatever  it 
be,  is  therefore  not  only  the  end  of  one  series,  it  is  also  the 
beginning  of  another.  We  allow  all  that ;  but  it  remains 
true,  that  what  characterises  the  phenomena  of  which  we  are 
speaking  is,  that  in  order  to  comprehend  and  give  an  account 
of  them,  we  have  no  need  to  view  them  in  relation  to  their 
future  consequences.  The  wave  is  explained  by  the  movement 
of  the  ocean,  which  is  explained  by  the  combined  attraction 
of  the  moon  and  of  the  sun  ;  the  fall  of  rocks  is  explained  by 
the  beating  of  the  wave  against  the  cliff,  and  so  on;  each 
phenomenon  is  sufiiciently  and  clearly  explained  by  that  pre- 
ceding, without  any  necessary  relation  to  that  which  follows. 
If,  at  the  moment  when  the  wind  causes  the  fall  of  a  stone,  a 


30  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  I. 

fiat  of  divine  power  were  to  annihilate  the  universe,  the  last 
phenomenon  produced,  although  interrupted  in  its  conse- 
quences, would  not  be  the  less  complete  and  explained  in 
itself,  and  nothing  would  be  wanting  to  make  it  entirel}^  what 
it  must  be,  namely,  the  fall  of  a  stone. 

But  it  is  not  the  same  in  all  cases,  and  here  we  touch  the 
knot  of  the  question. 

To  make  our  meaning  well  understood,  let  us  take  an 
example  in  a  case  where  the  finality  is  incontestable,  namely, 
in  the  works  of  human  industry :  we  shall  see  later  how  far 
one  is  warranted  to  employ  this  kind  of  examples.^  Let  us 
consider,  say,  a  machine.  I  say  that  what  distinguishes  this 
kind  of  object  is  that  it  is  doubly  conditioned,  —  on  the  side 
of  the  past,  on  the  one  hand,  by  its  relation  to  efficient  causes, 
and  on  the  side  of  the  future,  on  the  other  hand,  by  its  relation 
to  final  causes.  For  example,  a  locomotive  is  conditioned  on 
the  one  side  by  physical  laws,  —  by  the  solidity  of  iron,  by  its 
malleability,  by  the  elasticity  of  steam,  etc.,  in  a  word,  by  all 
the  physical  properties  which  have  rendered  possible  the  con- 
struction of  this  machine  and  its  action ;  for  nothing  can  be 
produced  except  conformably  to  the  properties  of  matter.  In 
the  second  place,  this  machine  is  conditioned  by  the  end  to 
wliich  it  is  destined,  for  according  as  it  has  to  raise  stones,  to 
put  in  motion  a  railway  train,  to  weave,  to  full,  to  dig,  etc., 
it  takes  forms  endlessly  varied.  Thus,  although  these  forms 
can  only  be  produced  in  the  field  rendered  possible  by  the 
properties  and  the  general  laws  of  nature,  these  properties  and 
laws  would  of  themselves  be  insufficient  to  circumscribe 
matter  into  this  or  that  form,  and  for  this  or  that  precise 
effect.  That  general  and  indeterminate  causes,  like  the 
malleability  of  iron,  gravijty,  elasticity,  etc.,  should  be  able, 
among  the  endless  variety  of  combinations  of  which  matter  is 
susceptible,  to  find  one  precisely  corresponding  to  a  determi- 
nate effect,  is  what  is  contrary  to  every  law  of  causality  ;  and 
when  such  a  coincidence  meets  us,  we  explain.it  by  suppos- 

1  See  chap.  iii. 


THE   PRINCIPLE.  31 

iiig  that  this  effect  already  pre-existed  in  the  cause  in  a  certaia 
maimer,  and  that  it  has  directed  and  circumscribed  its  action. 
Whence  it  comes  that,  in  presence  of  a  machine,  a  tool,  or 
any  fragment  of  human  industry,  we  say:  This  is  not  a  freak 
of  nature,  it  is  the  work  of  man. 

'If  one  were  to  find  on  a  desert  island,'  says  F^nelon,  'a 
beautiful  marble  statue,  he  would  doubtless  at  once  say: 
There  have  formerly  been  men  here ;  I  recognise  the  hand  of 
a  talented  sculptor.'  These  words  have  had  in  recent  times  a 
curious  justification.  What  has  been  found,  not  in  a  desert 
island,  but  in  antediluvian  deposits,  is  not  marble  statues, 
nor  magnificent  palaces,  but  tools,  and  the  rudest  possible ; 
hatchets,  ar.  at, least  is  suj^posed,  stones  cut  in  an  awkward 
manner,  such  as  can  sometimes  be  met  with  when  rocks  are 
broken.  And  yet,  however  rude  this  work  may  be,  the  fact 
that  such  stones  have  been  met  with  in  great  number  has. 
sufficed  to  lead  to  the  conclusion  that  they  cannot  be  a  freak 
of  nature.  That  mass  of  objects  collected  in  the  same  place^ 
cut  in  the  same  manner,  indicates  a  relation  of  finality ;  the}'' 
are  no  longer  stones,  they  are  instruments  —  that  is  to  say,, 
objects  destined  to  cut,  to  pierce,  to  strike,  to  produce  this  or 
that  effect.  This  induction  does  not  raise  the  shadow  of 
a  doubt ;  and  yet,  if  a  coincidence  of  unknown  causes  has 
been  able  to  produce  the  wing  of  the  bird  so  marvellously 
adapted  for  flying,  why  should  not  another  coincidence  of 
unknown  causes  have  been  able  to  produce  this  heap  of  rude 
stones,  so  imperfectly  adapted  to  their  object  ?  On  what,  then,^ 
in  this  case,  is  the  universally  admitted  induction  founded  ? 
On  this :  that  the  objects  which  present  themselves  to  us 
have  not  only  relation  to  the  past,  but  also  to  the  future,  and 
appear  to  us  conditioned  not  only  by  their  causes,  but  also 
by  their  effects.  Here,  for  instance,  the  hatchets  found  by 
M.  Boucher  de  Perthes  do  not  appear  to  us  only  as  fragments 
of  rock,  but  they  present  certain  forms,  dimensions,  and  com- 
binations of  hollows  and  projections  which  can  only  be  ex- 
plained by  a  certain  relation  to  the  action  of  cutting.     That 


32  BOOK   I.   CHAPTER   I. 

action  of  cutting,  which  results  from  the  structure  of  the 
hatchet,  and  which  in  this  sense  is  an  effect,  has  been  at  the 
same  time  one  of  the  determining  causes  of  the  form  which 
has  been  given  to  the  stone ;  it  is  therefore  a  sort  of  cause, 
but  a  cause  which  acts  in  some  fashion  before  existing ;  it  is 
an  effect  which,  foreseen  or  predetermined  by  the  efficient 
cause,  has  obliged  it  to  take  one  direction  rather  than  another  ; 
it  is  an  end ;  it  is  a  final  cause. 

We  have  seen,  by  the  first  principle  laid  down  above,  that 
wherever  there  is  a  combination  or  harmony  of  phenomena, 
there  must  be  a  precise  cause  to  explain  this  combination  or 
harmon}'".  But  now  we  require  something  more.  When  this 
combination  (already  remarkable  in  itself  as  a  complex  and 
precise  coincidence  of  heterogeneous  phenomena)  has,  be- 
sides, the  character  of  being  determined  relatively  to  a  future 
phenomenon  more  or  less  remote,  the  principle  of  causality 
-demands  that  we  explain  not  only  the  complexity  of  the  com- 
bination, but  also  that  relation  to  a  future  effect  which,  among 
an  infinitude  of  possible  combinations,  seems  to  have  circum- 
scribed the  action  of  the  efficient  cause,  and  to  have  deter- 
mined it  to  that  given  form.  This  correlation  to  the  future 
cannot  be  comprehended  excepting  that  future  phenomenon 
already  pre-exists  in  a  certain  fashion  in  the  efficient  cause, 
and  directs  its  action.  It  is  in  this  sense  that  a  cause  is  said 
to  tend  to  an  end. 

Thus,  when  a  combination  of  phenomena,  in  order  to  be 
comprehended,  only  requires  to  be  referred  to  its  antecedent 
conditions,  there  is  in  this  case  nothing  else  than  the  relation 
•of  cause  and  effect ;  but  when  the  combination,  in  order  to 
become  intelligible,  must  be  referred  not  only  to  its  anterior 
causes,  but  to  its  future  effects,  the  simple  relation  of  cause 
to  effect  no  longer  suffices,  and  is  transformed  into  a  relation 
of  means  to  end. 

Let  us  consider  now  the  following  example,  say  a  stomach 
fit  to  digest  flesh.  Let  us  first  suppose,  for  the  sake  of  argu- 
ment, that  this  is  a  simple  consequence,  and  not  an  end.    Here, 


THE   PRINCIPLE.  33 

now,  is  the  problem  which  the  physiologist  sets  himself,  and 
wliich  nature  before  him  must  have  set  herself.  How  does 
not  the  stomach,  which  digests  meat,  digest  itself?  How 
does  not  the  gastric  juice,  which  attacks  and  dissolves  all  sorts 
of  food,  dissolve  the  stomach,  which  is  precisely  of  the  same 
nature  as  the  other  foods  ?  Well,  now,  it  appears  that  nature, 
answering  the  objection  beforehand,  has  endued  the  internal 
walls  of  the  organ  with  a  special  varnish,  which  renders  them 
unassailable  by  the  action  of  the  gastric  juice.^  How  can 
one  refuse  to  admit  that  the  production  of  this  varnish  has  a 
determinate  and  rigorously  calculated  relation  to  the  future 
phenomenon  which  the  stomach  had  to  produce?  To  say 
that  such  a  relation  does  not  exist,  and  is  the  result  of  a  pure 
coincidence,  is  to  admit  that  while  certain  physical  causes 
produced  the  substance  called  stomach,  other  causes,  without 
any  accord  with  the  preceding,  produced  the  substance  called 
epithelium,,  which  is  found  to  be  precisely  the  condition  sine 
qud  non  of  the  digestive  function.  These  two  series  of  causes, 
working  in  the  dark,  without  any  relation  between  them  or 
with  the  future,  yet  end  by  harmonizing,  and  by  their  accord 
render  possible  the  future  phenomenon,  which  would  not  be 
so  without  it.  Is  it  not  renouncing  the  principle  of  causality 
merely  to  see  in  this  a  fortuitous  coincidence,  and  the  result 
of  certain  happy  chances  ?  Is  it  not  as  if  one  said  that  two 
persons,  of  whom  the  one  speaks  Russ  and  the  other  English, 
and  who  are  ignorant  of  each  other's  language,  can  yet  talk 
together,  in  virtue  of  fortunate  circumstances  which  caused 
that  the  discourse  of  the  one  was  found  to  be  exactly  the 
reply  to  the  question  of  the  other? 

Let  us  take  another  example.  All  the  animals  called  mam- 
malia are  at  the  same  time  viviparous.     Let  us  study  this 

1  '  If  the  gastric  juice  does  not  digest  the  walls  of  the  living  stomach,  it  is 
hecause  during  life  the  pepsine  cannot  be  absorbed.  The  presence  of  epithe- 
lium on  the  mucous  members  in  general,  on  the  stomachic  mucous  membrane 
especially,  opposes  a  complete  obstacle  to  absorption.  .  .  .  The  epithelium,  a 
species  of  glutinous  mucous,  which  lines  the  inner  wall  of  this  organ,  .  .  . 
encloses  then  the  gastric  juice  as  in  a  vase,  impermeable  as  if  it  were  of  porce- 
lain.' —  CI.  Bernard,  herons  de  phi/siologie,  t.  ii.  p.  408. 


34  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  I. 

remarkable  coincidence.  Here  are  a  certain  number  of  causes, 
themselves  already  very  complicated,  which  together  concur 
to  the  function  called  parturition,  whence  there  results  the 
production  of  a  young  one.  This  young  one  is  as  yet  incapa- 
ble of  itself  seeking  its  food  ;  and  of  all  nourishment  fit  for  its 
age,  the  best,  if  not  the  only  one,  is  milk.  Now  it  is  found 
that  another  series  of  causes  has  produced  in  the  mother  other 
organs  called  breasts,  adapted  to  a  secretive  function,  the  prod- 
uct of  which  is  precisely  that  which  best,  if  not  exclusively, 
suits  the  young.  It  is  found,  besides,  that  these  organs  remain 
inactive  during  all  one  portion  of  life  ;  that  they  only  perform 
their  functions  at  certain  intervals  and  at  certain  periods,  and 
that  these  periods  are  precisely  those  of  parturition.  If  it  be 
admitted  that  lactation  is  not  all  determined  by  the  future 
phenomenon  of  the  food  of  the  young  one,  one  must  in  this 
case  also  suppose  that  two  series  of  causes,  acting  separately 
without  knowing  each  other,  without  communication,  have 
coincided  by  happy  and  fortuitous  circumstances  in  this 
strange  final  result,  which  implies  a  strict  suitableness  and 
an  extraordinary  adaptation.  We  say,  according  to  our  prin- 
ciple, that  it  is  to  be  false  to  the  laws  of  causality  to  leave 
unexplained  this  strange  accord  of  the  past  with  the  future. 
The  learned  lawgiver  of  the  inductive  logic,  J.  Stuart  Mill, 
has  acknowledged  that  the  preceding  reasoning  is  one  of  the 
most  striking  applications  of  the  rules  of  induction.  When 
a  great  number  of  phenomena,  very  different  in  every  other 
point  of  view,  j^et  present  one  common  and  constant  circum- 
stance, this  circumstance  may  be  given  as  the  cause.  This 
is  what  is  called  the  method  of  concordance.  Now,  in  the 
present  case  (say,  for  example,  the  adaptation  of  the  eye  to 
the  light),  there  are  an  infinite  number  of  phenomena  which 
have  all  coincided  in  this  single  circumstance,  namely,  to 
promote  vision.  Vision  is  thus  the  circumstance  common  to 
all,  in  which  alone  they  coincide.  It  is,  therefore,  the  cause 
of  their  coincidence  ;  but  as,  on  tlie  other  hand,  it  is  their 
effect,  and  cannot  act  before  existing,  it  is  not  vision  itself. 


THE   PRINCIPLE.  35 

but  the  idea  of  vision  that  is  here  the  true  cause,  whicli  is 
expressed  by  saying  that  the  eye  is  made  for  seeing.^ 

After  what  has  been  said,  it  is  evident  how  just  is  the 
ingenious  approximation  which  has  been  made  between  the 
method  of  final  causes  and  the  analysis  of  geometricians.^  It 
appears,  in  short,  that  nature,  when  she  proceeds  by  efficient 
causes,  acts  like  the  geometrician  who  follows  the  synthetic 
method ;  who  sets  out,  that  is  to  say,  from  a  principle,  and 
who  deduces  consequences  from  it,  whatever  they  may  be. 
On  the  other  hand,  when  she  proceeds  by  final  causes,  she 
resembles  a  geometrician  who  sets  himself  a  problem,  and 
who,  by  the  analysis  of  the  data  of  the  question,  finds  the 
very  elements  of  the  solution.  To  employ  the  distinction  of 
a  philosophical  geometrician,  the  one  process  is  a  deduction, 
the  other  a  reduction.  The  one  consists  in  deriving  a  truth 
from  a  given  truth ;  the  other,  more  fertile,  consists  in  seeking 
from  what  truth  one  could  start  in  order  to  solve  any  given 
problem.  It  consists,  therefore,  in  '  reducing  the  knowledge 
of  a  thing  to  that  of  others  of  which  it  must  be  the  conse- 
quence.' ^  The  analogy  of  the  two  processes  is  strikingly 
evident :  here  it  is  a.  consequence  which  serves  to  discover  the 
principle,  which,  consequently,  is  in  some  sort  the  principle  of 
its  principle  ;  there,  it  is  an  effect  which  explains  the  cause, 
and  which  is  in  some  sort  the  cause  of  its  own  cause.  But 
let  us  illustrate  these  analogies  more  in  detail. 

According  to  the  geometrician  quoted,  the  application  of 
the  analytic  method,  or  of  reduction,  is  not  only  of  use  in 
science,  but  in  practical  life.  Every  question  resolved,  in 
the  one  case  as  in  the  other,  can  only  be  so  by  this  procedure : 
'  Whatever  one  proposes  to  oneself,'  says  he,  '  one  necessarily 
asks  oneself  what  is  that  which  must  be  done  beforehand, 

1  This  remarkable  analysis  of  the  argument  of  final  causes  is  given  by  Mill  in 
his  posthumous  work,  for  the  rest  so  bold,  entitled  Easuys  on  Religion,  pp.  170- 
172.  I  ought  to  add,  in  order  to  be  quite  exact,  that,  according  to  Mill,  the  argu- 
ment had  lost  much  force  since  the  rise  of  the  theory  of  Darwin.  But  none  the 
less  he  concludes  that  the  hypothesis  of  a  plan  is  still  by  far  the  most  {irobable- 

-  Trendelenburg,  Logische  Uyitersuchungen,  chap.  ix. 

3  Duhamel,  De  la  me'thode  dans  les  sciences  et  raisonnements,  p.  2-t, 


36  BOOK   I.   CHAPTER   I. 

and  which  will  conduce  to  the  end  proposed.  If  this  new 
thing  cannot  be  done  immediately,  one  inquires  on  what 
other  it  depends,  and  so  on  till  one  has  found  that  with 
which  one  must  commence.  Knowing  now  the  j)oint  of 
departure,  one  has  only  further  to  do  successively  all  those 
things  in  the  inverse  order  to  that  in  which  they  have  been 
discovered.  In  this  manner  one  first  makes  analysis,  and 
then  synthesis.'  ^  The  latter,  therefore,  is  the  reciprocal  of 
analysis ;  it  is  so  in  the  same  manner  that  the  series  of 
efficient  causes  is  the  reciprocal  of  the  series  of  final  causes. 
Nature  executes  synthetically  what  the  author  of  nature  has 
invented  analytically?  The  same  geometrician  adopts  him- 
self the  very  analogy  we  employ,  and  which  is  so  striking, 
when  he  says :  '  The  method  will  always  consist  in  setting 
out,  whether  from  the  result  or  from  the  thing  which  one 
requires  —  in  a  word,  from  the  end  ive  set  before  us,  and  in 
substituting  for  it  a  more  easy  one,  and  which  will  lead  to 
the  latter  by  known  means.'  ^ 

Let  us  meanwhile  compare  with  this  method  that  which 
nature  follows  in  producing  organs.  Here  is,  for  instance, 
how  a  naturalist  expounds  the  theory  of  the  flight  of  birds. 
He  attributes  to  the  author  of  nature  an  analytic  reasoning, 
perfectly  similar  to  that  which  has  just  been  described.  '  If 
one  admitted,'  says  Strauss  Durckeim,  'that  a  man  of  supe- 
rior genius  had  the  power  to  create  at  will,  by  mere  thought, 
whatever  can  be  conceived,  and  that  he  wished  to  transform 
the  type  of  mammalia  into  that  of  a  flying  animal,  a  perfect 
aerial  sailor,  capable  of  long  sustaining  a  rapid  flight  he  would 
be  led,  from  consequence  to  consequence,  to  form  a  bird  such  as 
we  know  them,  even  if  these  animals  had  not  been  known  to 
him,  80  entirely,  even  to  the  most  minute  details,  is  every- 

1  Duhamel,  T)e  l<i  me'thode  dans  les  sciences  et  raisonnements,  p.  5(). 

2  It  is  important  to  point  out  that  Ave  employ  these  two  words  in  tlie  sense 
of  geometricians,  and  in  particular,  of  the  Greek  geometricians  ;  for  in  another 
sense  it  wonld  be  more  correct  to  say  that  it  is  the  order  of  efficient  cause* 
which  is  analytic,  and  that  of  final  causes  which  is  synthetic. 

8  Duliamel,  De  la  mithode  dans  les  sciences  ct  raisonnpineuts,  p.  50. 


THE   PRINCIPLE.  37 

thing  strictly  combined  iind  calculated  in  the  structure  of 
their  body  for  the  faculty  of  llight.'  ^  In  order  to  solve  this 
problem,  '  it  is  not  enough  to  convert  the  anterior  members  in 
any  fashion  into  a  large  blade,  whose  alternate  movements 
upwards  and  downwards  have  to  effect  the  translation  of  the 
body  in  the  air  from  behind  forwards,  but  these  wings  must 
also  be  placed  according  to  certain  mechanical  principles,  to 
render  this  movement  possible ;  besides,  this  new  function 
must  in  no  respect  disturb  the  others,  and  when  it  requires 
an}"  change  in  the  form  and  arrangement  of  any  other  organ, 
the  latter  must  equally  be  modified  in  consequence  of  this- 
function  of  flying.  Above  all,  the  new  being  or  bird  must  be 
able  to  hold  itself  in  position,  and  to  walk  on  its  hind  limbs, 
and  to  make,  besides,  all  other  movements  in  more  or  less 
eminent  degrees,  according  to  the  purpose  which  each  organ 
is  to  serve.  Now  it  is  in  these  numerous  modifications  de- 
pending on  each  other,  and  all  on  the  principal  function  or  on 
flying,  that  one  finds,  as  in  every  other  case,  the  application 
of  the  most  transcendent  science  and  the  most  sublime  wis- 
dom.' We  clearly  see  from  these  words  that  the  given  prob- 
lem is  one  of  analysis  —  namely,  how  to  transform  amammifer 
into  a  bird,  given  the  laws  of  mechanics  and  the  physical 
and  physiological  conditions  of  life.  It  is  also  evident  that 
the  solution  of  this  problem  requires  that  the  supposed  author 
of  this  production  has  ascended  step  by  step,  the  series  of 
conditions  which  that  solution  required,  until  he  arrived  at 
the  point  from  which  it  was  necessary  to  start,  whether  from 
the  mammiferous  type  by  way  of  transformation,  or  from  the 
vertebrate  type  by  way  of  differentiation.  The  author  de- 
velops, in  the  greatest  detail  and  in  an  entirely  technical 
manner,  which   we   cannot  here  analyze,  these  learned  me- 

1  TMolor/ie  de  la  naUire,  t.  i.  p.  257.  This  remarkable  work  is  one  of  those 
in  which  the  argument  of  final  pauses  has  been  developed  with  the  utmost 
science  and  precision.  The  author.  Desides,  was  a  distinguished  scientist ;  he 
is  known  specially  by  a  theory  of  the  flight  of  insects,  which  M.  Marey  has 
since  perfected.  The  latter  has  justly  described  his  work  by  calling  it '  a  chao9 
of  ingenious,  profound,  and  puerile  ideas.'  (See  Revue  des  coiirs  scientijiquca, 
Ire  se'rie,  t.  vi.) 


'38  BOOK   I.   CHAPTER   I. 

^hanics.  Among  the  precautions  and  measures  taken  by 
nature  for  the  solution  of  the  problem,  let  us  rest  content 
•with  mentioning  some  of  those  most  easily  understood  with- 
out special  knowledge ;  for  example,  the  invention  of  feath- 
ers, and  that  of  the  varnish  which  covers  them.  The  first 
of  these  two  inventions  meets  this  difficulty :  how  to  cover 
the  body  of  the  bird  without  too  much  increasing  its  weight, 
.and  without  rendering  its  flight  too  difficult.  The  second 
meets  this  other  difficulty :  how  to  prevent  the  feathers  from 
becoming  too  heavy  from  rain. 

As  regards  the  first  problem,  nature,  employing  here  again 
the  analysis  of  the  geometrician,  has  reasoned  according  to 
our  naturalist  in  the  following  manner :  '  Light  hair  would 
not  have  sufficed  to  preserve  to  those  animals  a  nearly  equal 
temperature,  and  thick  wool,  like  that  of  sheep,  would  have 
rendered  flight  impossible.'  How  solve  this  delicate  prob- 
lem ?  In  this  manner :  '  By  modifying  the  clothing  of  these 
animals,  that  is  to  say,  by  transforming  hair  into  feathers,  and 
by  giving  to  these  organs  the  great  dimensions  which  they 
have  in  the  great  feathers,'  so  as  '  to  increase  the  surface 
of  the  wings  without  sensibly  increasing  the  weight  of  the 
body.^  As  regards  the  solution  of  the  second  problem,  this 
is  the  series  of  ideas  which  must  have  been  gone  through  : 
■*  If  the  feathers  were  liable  to  be  easily  moistened,  the  rain 
would  make  them  stick  together,  which  would  considerably 
impede  flight,  and  even  render  it  impossible,  as  is  seen  in  the 
case  of  animals  forcibly  wetted.  But  divine  benevolence  has 
guarded  against  this  inconvenience  by  giving  to  those  ani- 
mals a  special  organ  secreting  an  oily  substance,  Avith  which 
the  bird  covers  its  feathers  in  order  to  overlay  them  with  a 
dry  varnish,  which  renders  them  so  entirely  impermeable  to 
water  that  these  animals  are  never  wetted  with  it.'  ^ 

1  TJie'olor/ie  de  la  nature,  t.  i.  p.  302. 

-  TMologie  de  la  nature,  p.  324.  See  likewise,  in  the  sequel  of  tlie  preceding 
passage,  the  analysis  of  the  problem  of  the  colouring  of  feathers.  —  In  the  same 
order  of  ideas  there  will  be  found  in  Ch.  Blanc  ( Foyof/e  c7o  la  Haute  Eg ijpte, 
p.  100)  a  smart  conversation  between  the  learned  critic  and  Doctor  Broca  on 
alie  creation  of  the  camel,  '  the  ship  of  the  desert.' 


THE  PRINCIPLE.  39 

This  comparison  of  the  analytic  method  with  the  procedure 
of  final  causes  may  serve  to  explain  one  of  the  terms  of  which 
Aristotle  sometimes  made  use  to  express  the  end,  namely,  to 
e'^  viTo6i(X(.(ji<i  dmyKaioi/,  the  hypotJietically  necessary.  In  effect 
the  end  is  what  I  wish  to  attain  ;  it  is  only,  therefore,  some- 
thing necessary  for  me  by  hypothesis.  For  example,  the  end 
of  gaining  money  is  only  a  hypothetical  necessity,  for  I  can 
always  will  not  to  gain  it.  It  is  not  the  same  with  tliis 
other  necessity,  for  instance,  that  I  must  die ;  that  is  abso- 
lutely necessary.  The  result  is  therefore  an  absolute  neces- 
sity, the  end  is  only  relatively  necessary.  Thus,  to  solve  a 
problem  is  only  necessary  by  hypothesis.  It  is  I  who  choose 
it,  while  I  do  not  choose  the  consequences  of  a  principle : 
they  are  imposed  upon  me  with  an  absolute  necessity. 

From  all  the  foregoing,  it  follows  that  the  sought  for  cri- 
terion of  the  final  cause  is  the  agreement  of  the  present  with 
the  future,  the  determination  of  the  one  by  the  other.  Still, 
notwithstanding  all  the  reasons  given,  might  it  not  yet  be 
asked  if  this  criterion  would  not  assume  exactly  what  is  in 
question?  For  this  agreement  to  which  we  appeal  is  only 
surprising  if  we  imagine  beforehand  the  future  phenomenon 
as  fixed  a  priori,  and  as  a  goal  which  nature  ought  to  reach, 
as  a  problem  which  it  has  taken  in  hand  to  solve.  In  this 
case  it  is  true  that  nature,  blind  and  without  an  end,  can- 
not accidentally  hit  upon  the  best  possible  combination  in 
relation  to  such  an  end.  For  instance,  if  a  target,  is  set 
before  a  blind  man,  and  a  point  in  that  target,  it  is  extremely 
improbable  that,  shooting  at  random,  without  even  knowing 
that  there  is  an  end,  he  should  attain  it.  But  this  is  sup- 
posing beforehand  there  is  an  end.  Let  us  suppose,  on  the 
other  hand,  that  without  proposing  to  himself  any  end,  and 
shooting  at  random,  he  yet  hits  some  place,  there  is  nothing 
astonishing  in  that.  The  same  is  the  case  with  nature.  If, 
by  a  gratuitous  hypothesis,  we  begin  by  supposing  that  there 
ought  to  be  flying,  walking,  self-nourishing  animals,  it  is  very 
surprising  that  in  effect  nature  has  precisely  realized  these 


40  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  I. 

prodigies.  But  it  will  be  said :  this  is  precisely  what  is  in 
question.  If  it  is  a/1  mitted,  on  the  contrary,  that  nature  had 
not  in  reality  any  problem  to  solve,  any  end  to  attain,  that 
she  obeyed  her  own  laws,  and  that  from  those  laws  have 
resulted  an  infinite  number  of  diverse  phenomena,  which  are 
only  the  results  of  these  properties ;  what,  then,  is  there  sur- 
prising in  that  there  should  be  agreement  and  harmony 
between  the  causes  and  the  effects  ?  To  wonder  at  this 
agreement  is  to  conceive  beforehand  the  effect  as  a  fixed 
point  which  nature  behoved  to  have  in  view  —  that  is  to  say, 
to  conceive  it  as  an  end,  which  is  therefore  an  evident  circle. 

We  maintain,  on  the  other  hand,  that  what  occurs  first  as  an 
effect^  takes  thereupon  the  character  of  an  end^  by  reason  of  the 
number  and  the  complexity  of  the  combinations  which  have 
rendered  it  possible.  We  do  not  set  out  from  the  idea  of  an 
end,  to  conclude  from  it  that  the  combinations  which  conduct 
to  it  are  means,  but,  on  the  contrary,  those  combinations  only 
appear  intelligible  to  us  when  viewed  as  means ;  and  this  is 
why  the  effect  becomes  an  end.  We  set  out,  in  short,  from  a 
fixed  pointy  which  is  given  us  in  experience  as  an  effect ;  but 
this  effect  only  being  possible  by  an  incalculable  mass  of  coin- 
cidences^ it  is  this  agreement  between  so  many  coincidences 
and  a  certain  effect  which  constitutes  precisely  the  proof  of 
finality.^ 

In  order  to  render  evident  the  force  of  this  doctrine,  let  u& 
choose  a  very  complex  combination  —  for  instance,  the  human 
eye,  with  its  final  result,  sight.  Let  us  consider  one  of  the 
factors  which  enter  into  this  combination,  the  retina  or  nervous 
material,  sensitive  to  the  light,  and  susceptible  of  receiving 
an  image  like  a  photographic  plate.     Let  us  suppose  that  this 

1  Hartmann  (Philosophie  des  Unbewnssten,  Introd.  chap,  ii.)  has  attempted  to 
submit  to  calculation  the  probability  that  an  organic  product  is  the  result  of  an 
intelligent,  and  not  of  a  physical  cause.  For  instance,  for  the  production  of  the 
eye,  this  probability  would  be  according  to  him  0'99999,  that  is  to  say,  almost 
equivalent  to  unity  or  certainty.  But  those  mathematical  calculations  are  pure 
fictions,  which  perniciously  give  a  false  appearance  of  strictness  to  that  which 
cannot  have  it,  and  translate  pure  and  simple  into  abstract  signs  a  conviction 
which  we  have  already  in  the  mind. 


THE  PRINCIPLE.  41 

relation  of  the  retina  to  the  light  is  a  simple  relation  of  cause 
to  effect.  This  effect  is,  therefore,  given  to  us  by  experience 
as  resulting  from  such  an  organic  proi^erty.  This  is  what  I 
call  our  fixed  point,  which  will  not  be  an  end  fixed  beforehand 
and  arbitrarily  by  ourselves,  but  a  positive  and  experimental 
datum.  But  now,  in  order  that  this  result,  contained  poten- 
tially in  the  properties  of  the  retina,  may  be  realized,  a  thou- 
sand million  combinations  are  needed,  each  more  surprising 
than  the  others,  and  one  might  bet  an  infinity  against  one 
that  these  combinations  will  never  occur ;  for,  in  order  that 
the  retina  may  be  able  to  manifest  this  property,  unknown 
causes  must  have  constructed  a  machine  to  concentrate  the 
luminous  rays  on  the  sensible  point,  where  the}'  are  suscej)tible 
of  being  painted  and  of  producing  an  impression.  An  infinite 
number  of  causes,  working  blindly  and  without  mutual  under- 
standing, must  therefore  have  happened  to  light  upon  the 
favourable  combination  which  permits  the  retina  to  receive 
an  image.  Now  we  maintain  that  such  a  coincidence  will  be 
fortuitous,  that  is  to  say,  without  cause,  if  it  is  not  granted 
that  it  has  taken  place  precisely  in  order  that  this  manifesta- 
tion might  take  place ;  thus,  what  was  till  then  merely  an 
effect  will  for  us  become  an  end.  It  is  evident  we  do  not 
start  at  all  from  the  hypothesis  that  sight  is  an  end,  for  that 
is  what  we  wish  to  demonstrate  ;  no  more  do  we  set  out  from 
the  adaptation  of  the  means  to  the  end,  for  if  there  is  no  end 
there  is  no  adaptation,  and  there  would  be  here  again  a  vicious 
circle.  We  set  out  from  an  effect  as  effect ;  then  remarkinsr 
that  such  an  effect  has  only  been  possible  if  millions  of  causes 
have  agreed  to  produce  it,  we  see  in  this  agreement  the 
criterion  which  transforms  the  effect  into  an  end,  and  the 
causes  into  means. 

It  is  to  be  understood  that,  in  order  that  the  preceding 
reasoning  may  be  valid,  we  may  choose  in  the  combination 
Avhich  we  are  studying  whatever  factor  we  ma}'  please.  In 
place  of  the  retina,  let  us  take  the  crystalline  humour.  Let 
us   admit   that   nature,  without   any   end,  has   created   tho 


42  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  I. 

crystalline,  that  is  to  say,  a  lens  adapted  to  concentrate  the 
luminous  rays,  and  which,  consequently,  renders  possible 
the  formation  of  an  image.  That  will  be,  if  you  will,  a  simple 
relation  of  cause  to  effect.  But  that  is  yet  a  property  which 
only  exists  potentially  in  the  crystalline,  and,  in  order  that 
it  may  be  realized  in  a  manner  which  may  have  any  meaning, 
this  concentration  of  rays  must  take  place  upon  a  point  sen- 
sible to  light.  This  lens  must  be  placed  in  a  camera  obscura  ; 
it  must  be  in  communication  with  the  exterior  by  an  appro- 
priate opening.  There  must  be,  in  a  word,  the  agreem'ent 
of  so  many  circumstances  that  this  agreement  with  a  final 
phenomenon  will  appear  without  cause,  and  purely  arbitrary, 
if  the  phenomenon  is  not  considered  as  an  end. 

From  these  examples  it  is  clear  what  we  mean  by  the  de- 
termination of  the  present  by  the  future.  We  will  choose  in 
each  function  its  essential  and  characteristic  phenomenon  (foi 
instance,  in  nutrition,  assimilation ;  in  respiration,  the  oxygena 
tion  of  the  blood,  etc.).  We  will  commence  by  considering 
this  phenomenon  as  a  simple  result  of  the  properties  of  organ- 
ised matter;  that  is  what  we  call  the  future  phenomenon. 
Meanwhile,  in  studying  the  conditions  of  the  production  of 
this  phenomenon,  we  shall  find  that  there  must  by,  in  order  to 
produce  it,  an  enormous  mass  of  coincidences,  all  landing  in 
precisely  the  same  result.  This  we  call  the  harmony  of  the 
phenomena  with  the  future.  Now,  how  would  so  many 
diverse  causes  happen  to  converge  to  the  selfsame  point  if 
there  were  not  some  cause  which  directed  them  towards  that 
point?  Such  is  the  succession  of  ideas  in  virtue  of  which  the 
result  becomes  an  end. 

If  we  could  imagine,  on  the  one  hand,  an  entire  and 
complete  combination,  independently  of  the  final  phenome- 
non to  which  it  is  appropriated,  and,  on  the  other,  that  phe- 
nomenon considered  as  a  result  of  the  combination  ;  if  between 
this  combination  and  this  result  there  were  an  interval,  a  sepa- 
ration, or  limit,  were  it  only  for  an  im.tant,  but  yet  safiiciently 
marked  for  these  two  terms  of  the  i'j'.?.tion  to  be  plainly  dis- 


THE  PRINCIPLE.  43 

tinguished  by  the  mind,  —  the  agreement  of  the  combination 
with  the  final  phenomenon  would  appear  so  much  the  more 
striliing,  and  would  the  more  surprise  the  imagination.  Now, 
this  is  what  actually  takes  place.  In  effect,  in  the  mystery 
and  the  night  of  the  act  of  incubation  —  in  the  obscure  sanc- 
tuary of  the  maternal  womb  in  the  case  of  viviparous,  in  the 
envelope  of  the  egg  in  the  case  of  oviparous  animals  —  is 
formed  and  fabricated  by  the  collaboration  of  an  incredible 
number  of  causes,  a  living  machine,  absolutely  separated  from 
the  external  world,  yet  in  agreement  with  it,  all  whose  parts 
correspond  to  certain  physical  conditions  of  this  external 
world.  The  external  physical  world  and  the  internal  labora- 
tory of  the  living  being  are  separated  from  each  other  by 
impenetrable  veils,  and  yet  they  are  united  to  each  other 
by  an  incredible  pre-established  harmony.  On  the  outside 
there  is  a  physical  agent  called  light ;  within,  there  is  fabri- 
cated an  optical  machine  adapted  to  the  light :  outside,  there 
is  an  agent  called  pound  ;  inside,  an  acoustic  machine  adapted 
to  sound :  outside,  vegetables  and  animals ;  inside,  stills  and 
alembics  adapted  to  the  assimilation  of  these  substances  :  out- 
side, a  medium,  solid,  liquid,  or  gaseous ;  inside,  a  thousand 
means  of  locomotii:)n,  adapted  to  the  air,  the  earth,  or  the  water. 
Thus,  on  the  one  hand,  there  are  the  final  phenomena  called 
sight,  hearing,  nutrition,  flying,  walking,  swimming,  etc. ;  on 
the  other,  the  eyes,  the  ears,  the  stomach,  the  wings,  the  fins, 
the  motive  members  of  every  sort.  We  see  clearly  in  these 
examples  the  two  terms  of  the  relation,  —  on  the  one  hand, 
a  system  ;  on  the  other,  the  final  phenomenon  in  which  it  ends. 
Were  there  only  system  and  combination,  as  in  crystals,  still, 
as  we  have  seen,  there  must  have  been  a  special  cause  to 
explain  that  system  and  that  combination.  But  there  is  more 
here ;  there  is  the  agreement  of  a  system  with  a  phenomenon 
which  will  only  be  produced  long  after  and  in  new  conditions, 
—  consequently  a  correspondence  which  cannot  be  fortuitous, 
and  which  would  necessarily  be  so  if  we  do  not  admit  that 
the  final  and  future  phenomenon  is  precisely  the  bond  of  the 


44  BOOK   I.   CHAPTER   I. 

system  and  the  ciroumstauce  which,  in  whatever  manner,  has 
predetermined  the  combination. 

Imagine  a  blind  workman,  hidden  in  a  cellar,  and  destitute 
of  all  intelligence,  who,  merely  yielding  to  the  simple  need 
of  moving  his  limbs  and  his  hands,  should  be  found  to  have 
forged,  without  knowing  it,  a  key  adapted  to  the  most  com- 
plicated lock  which  can  possibly  be  imagined.  This  is  what 
nature  does  in  the  fabrication  of  the  living  being.^ 

Nowhere  is  this  pre-established  harmony,  to  which  we 
have  just  drawn  attention,  displayed  in  a  more  astonishing 
manner  than  between  the  eye  and  the  light.  '  In  the  con- 
struction of  this  organ,'  says  Trendelenburg,  ^  we  must  either 
admit  that  light  has  triumphed  over  matter  and  has  fashioned 
it,  or  else  it  is  the  matter  itself  which  has  become  the  master 
of  the  light.  This  is  at  least  what  should  result  from  the  law 
of  efficient  causes,  but  neither  the  one  nor  the  other  of  these 
two  hypotheses  takes  place  in  reality.  No  ray  of  light  falls 
within  the  sacred  depths  of  the  maternal  womb,  where  the 
eye  is  formed.  Still  less  could  inert  matter,  which  is  noth- 
ing without  the  energy  of  light,  be  capable  of  comprehend- 
ing it.  Yet  the  light  and  the  eye  are  made  the  one  for  the 
other,  and  in  the  miracle  of  the  eye  resides  the  latent  con- 
sciousness of  the  light.  The  moving  cause,  with  its  necessary 
development,  is  here  employed  for  a  higher  service.  The 
end  commands  the  whole,  and  watches  over  the  execution  of 

1  One  of  the  most  penetrating  minds  of  our  time,  the  commentator  of  Pascal, 
M.  Ernest  Havet,  has  been  so  good  as  write  to  us  in  regard  to  tliis  discussion, 
that  it  was  '  as  clear  as  compact ; '  but  he  adds  :  '  How  is  it  tliat  I  still  resist 
it  ?  It  is  because,  as  it  seems  to  me,  it  is  only  irresistible  for  those  who  regard 
things  as  the  work  of  chance  and  of  rencontres,  and  I  am  not  of  them.  I 
regard,  for  example,  the  first  eye  (if  there  has  ever  been  a  first  eye),  not  as  a 
result  of  chance,  but  as  a  system,  a  necessary  development  of  another  system 
that  had  immediately  preceded  it.  I  ascend  thus  from  cause  to  cause  to  infini- 
tude.' All  that  I  have  to  say  to  this  objection  is,  that  the  critic,  in  granting 
that  the  eye  is  a  system,  thereby  grants  all  that  we  ask.  For  in  every  system 
the  parts  are  subordinated  to  the  whole  ;  and  as  regards  things  subject  to  gen- 
eration and  change,  they  must  be  co-ordinated  in  relation  to  the  idea  of  the 
whole.  They  are  therefore  commanded  by  that  idea  ;  it  is  the  future  tliat 
determines  the  present.  But  that  is  jiist  what  is  called  final  cause.  As  to  the 
first  cause  of  this  co-ordination,  it  is  not  in  question  here,  and  we  remit  it  to 
the  second  book  of  this  work. 


THE   PRINCIPLE.  45 

the  parts;  aud  it  is  with  the  aid  of  the  end  that  the  eye 
becomes  "  the  light  of  the  body."  '  ^ 

As  the  planetary  perturbations  have  chiefly  contributed  to 
set  in  the  clearest  light  the  truth  of  the  law  of  Newton,  in 
the  same  way  the  apparent  exceptions  to  the  law  of  finality 
may  serve  to  render  it  more  striking  and  manifest.  Thus  a 
clever  gymnast,  in  his  most  perilous  feats,  makes  a  feint  of 
falling,  to  disquiet  for  a  moment  and  gain  more  admiration 
for  his  skill.     I  will  mention  two  examples  of  it. 

Miiller  informs  us  that  in  the  structure  of  the  organs  of 
motion  the  laws  of  mechanics  are  not  well  observed.  '  The 
essence  of  locomotion,'  says  he,  '  notwithstanding  the  diversity 
of  forms  of  motion  by  swimming,  creeping,  flying,  and  walking, 
consists  in  tliis,  that  certain  parts  of  the  body  describe  arcs, 
the  branches  of  which  extend,  after  being  propped  on  a  fixed 
point.  .  .  .  The  laws  of  the  lever  play  a  great  part  in  this.' 
Now  we  find,  in  observing  the  structure  of  animals,  that  these 
laws  have  not  been  applied  by  nature  in  the  most  favourable 
and  economical  manner  —  that  is  to  say,  so  as  to  obtain  the  most 
motion  with  the  least  possible  labour.  '  In  effect,'  says  Miiller, 
*  however  diversely  the  levers  are  placed  on  the  animals  pro- 
vided with  paws,  they  are  so  almost  always  in  a  disadvantageous 
manner^  for  the  muscles  generally  exert  upon  them  a  very 
oblique  action ;  besides  that,  the  insertion  is  frequently  too 
near  the  fulcrum.'  Here  we  have,  then,  apparently  an  error 
of  nature. 

But  Miiller  immediately  gives  the  explanation  of  it,  which, 
in  the  end,  is  found  quite  agreeable  to  the  principle :  '  Con- 
siderations of  a  greater  order,'  says  he,  '  have  ordained  this 
arrangement,  of  which  the  beauty  of  the  forms  is  not  the  only 
end.  If  nature  had  placed  the  levers  of  all  the  members  in 
the  most  favourable  manner,  the  result  would  have  been  that 
the  body  would  have  had  a  complex,  angular,  troublesome 
form,  and  that,  despite  the  precautions  apparently  taken  to 
utilize  force,  the  expense  in  this  regard  would   have  been 

1  Trendelenburg,  Logische  Untersuchiingen,  t.  ii.  chap.  ix.  ji.  i. 


46  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  I. 

more  considerable  in  the  final  analysis,  because  of  the  mul- 
tiplied obstacles  to  the  harmonious  concurrence  of  actions.' 
Thus,  in  this  case,  the  apparent  violation  of  the  rule  is  in 
reality  only  its  confirmation. 

It  is  the  same  in  another  case  not  less  remarkable.  Every 
one  knows  how  much  value  for  their  argument  the  friends  of 
final  causes  have  attached  to  the  marvellous  structure  of  the 
eye ;  it  is  the  classical  argument  in  this  matter,  and  we  our- 
selves have  just  been  indicating  it.  Yet  it  is  found  that  the 
structure  of  this  organ  is  very  far  from  having  all  the  per- 
fection which  was  supposed,  and  Herr  Helmholtz  has  shown 
that  it  is  filled  with  imperfections  and  defects.  From  this 
occasion  a  critic  expresses  himself  as  follows :  '  The  friends  of 
final  causes,'  says  M.  Laugel,  '  who  are  in  ecstasies  over  the 
adaptation  of  organs  to  functions,  will  perhaps  have  some 
difficulty  in  reconciling  their  theoretical  views  with  the  facts 
which  have  just  been  set  forth.  There  is  no  maker  of  optical 
instruments  who  might  not  succeed  in  rendering  his  appa- 
ratus much  more  perfect  than  this  eye  of  which  we  are  so- 
proud.  .  .  .  The  eye  has,  on  the  other  hand,  this  remarkable 
character,  that  it  combines  all  the  known  defects  of  these 
instruments.  .  .  .  There  is  nothing  perfect,  nothing  finished, 
in  nature.  .  .  .  Our  organs  are  instruments  at  once  admira- 
ble and  rude.'  ^ 

However,  it  is  found  that  here  again  the  exception  is  only 
a  just  application  of  the  rule,  as  is  very  well  explained  by  this 
very  savant,  from  whom  this  difficulty  is  borrowed.  In  fact, 
what  Herr  Helmholtz  has  demonstrated  is  simply  that  the 
human  eye  is  not  an  instrument  of  precision,  and  also  that  it 
ought  not  to  be  so.  Doubtless  the  eye  may  have  numerous 
defects  compared  with  our  optical  instruments,  defects  which 
our  industry  is  able  to  avoid ;  but  these  defects  do  not  at  all 
impair  its  veritable  use,  for  its  function  is  not  to  make  delicate 
experiments,  like  those  which  we  make  with  our  instruments^ 
but  simply  to  serve  us  in  practical  life.    Moreover,  the  scientist 

1  L'optique  et  les  arts,  p.  27. 


THE  PRINCIPLE.  47 

in  question  expresses  himself  thus :  '  The  appropriateness  of 
the  eye  tc  its  end  exists  in  the  most  perfect  manner,  and  is 
revealed  even  in  the  limit  given  to  its  defects.  A  reasonable 
man  will  not  take  a  razor  to  cleave  blocks;  in  like  manner, 
every  useless  refinement  in  the  optical  use  of  the  eye  would 
have  rendered  that  organ  more  delicate  and  slower  in  its 
application.'  ^  It  is  evident  one  must  not  be  in  a  hurry  in 
the  desire  to  catch  nature  in  a  fault,  for  one  is  caught  in  the 
trap  oneself. 

The  mode  of  reasoning  which  we  have  developed  at  pres- 
ent, and  which  we  consider  as  the  proof  of  final  causes,  is 
applicable  in  a  much  more  striking  manner  still,  when  we 
pass  from  the  adajytation  of  organs  to  their  correlation.  What, 
in  short,  did  we  say  ?  That  we  must  take  in  each  function 
a  fixed  point,  which  is  the  essential  act  of  the  function,  and 
consider  this  act  simply  as  a  result.  It  is  soon  evident  that, 
in  order  to  render  this  result  possible,  so  great  a  number  of 
coincidences  have  been  required,  that  these  coincidences  can- 
not be  explained  if  that  result  is  not  an  end.  How  much 
more  evident  still  is  this  argument  when  one  compares,  not 
the  different  factors  of  one  organ  or  of  one  function,  but  the- 
concordance  of  different  organs  or  of  different  functions ! 
Indeed,  it  then  suffices  to  take  one  of  those  organs  with  its 
function,  and  to  consider  that  function  as  a  simple  result  — 
for  instance,  the  lungs  and  respiration.  We  shall  then  ask 
ourselves  how  this  function  is  possible,  and  we  shall  see  that 
it  necessarily  supposes  another  organ  and  another  function 
—  for  instance,  the  heart  and  the  circulation.  Now,  that 
these  two  organs  and  these  two  functions  (hypothetically 
necessary  to  each  other)  should  have  met  together,  is  what 
is  impossible  without  a  miracle,  except  a  common  cause, 
capable  of  grasping  the  relation  of  the  two  things,  has  bound 
them  to  each  other  —  that  is  to  say,  has  made  them  for  each 
other. 

Every  one  knows  that  celebrated  law,  called  the  law  of 

1  Helmholtz,  Revue  des  conrs publics  scientifiques,  Ire  se'rie,  t.  vi.  p.  219. 


48  BOOK  I.   CHAPTER   I. 

organic  correlations^  which  Cuvier  summed  up  in  these 
terms :  '  Every  organized  being  forms  a  whole,  a  close  sys- 
tem, whose  parts  mutually  correspond  and  concur  in  one  and 
the  same  definitive  action  by  a  reciprocal  reaction.'  It  is  the 
same  idea  that  Kant  expressed,  for  his  part,  by  that  beauti- 
ful definition  :  '  The  organized  being,'  said  he,  '  is  the  being 
in  which  all  is  reciprocally  end  and  means.'  ^ 

We  have  no  need  to  enter  here  into  the  details  of  this  law, 
which  has  served  as  the  basis  of  comparative  anatomy.  Let 
us  be  satisfied  with  indicating  some  of  the  most  general  facts 
mentioned  by  Cuvier,  in  that  passage  so  well  known  and  so 
-often  quoted,  but  which  is  too  apposite  to  our  subject  not  to 
be  quoted  here  yet  once  more  :  '  A  tooth,'  says  he,  '  that  is 
sharp  and  adapted  to  tear  flesh,  will  never  co-exist  in  the  same 
species  with  a  foot  enveloped  in  horn,  which  can  only  bear  the 
.animal,  and  with  which  it  cannot  seize  its  prey.  Whence 
the  rule,  that  every  hoofed  animal  is  herbivorous,  and  the  still 
more  detailed  rules,  which  are  only  corollaries  of  the  first, 
that  hoofs  on  the  feet  indicate  molar  teeth  with  flat  crowns, 
a  very  long  alimentary  canal,  a  large  or  multiplied  stomach, 
and  a  great  number  of  relations  of  the  same  kind.'^  .  .  . 
'  Thus  the  intestines  are  in  relation  to  the  jaws,  the  jaws  to 

1  Mr.  Huxley,  Revue  scientifique  (2e  serie,  t.  xii.  p.  769),  draws  an  objection 
to  the  definition  of  Kant  from  the  cellular  theory  of  Schwann.  '  Kant,'  says 
he,  '  defines  the  mode  of  existence  of  living  beings  by  this,  that  all  their  parts 
co-exist  on  account  of  the  whole,  and  that  the  whole  itself  exists  on  account  of 
the  parts.  But  since  Turpin  and  Schwann  have  decomposed  the  living  body 
into  an  aggregation  of  almost  independent  cells,  having  each  their  special  laws 
■of  development  and  of  growth,  the  view  of  Kant  has  ceased  to  be  tenable. 
Each  cell  lives  for  itself  as  well  as  for  the  whole  organism;  the  cells  which  float 
in  the  blood  live  at  their  own  expense,  and  are  organisms  as  independent  as 
the  torulce  which  float  in  the  wort  of  beer.'  We  do  not  see  in  what  respect  the 
cellular  theory  contradicts  the  definition  of  Kant.  The  cell  can  have  an  inde- 
pendent life,  and  have  equally  a  collective  and  correlative  life.  The  cell  lives 
for  itself.  Be  it  so;  but  it  is  added,  that  it '  lives  also  for  the  entire  organism,' 
and  reciprocally  it  lives  6?/  the  organism  at  the  same  time  as  for  it.  There  is  no 
■contradiction  in  this,  that  an  independent  being  should  be  at  the  same  time  a 
member  of  a  system:  it  lives  at  once  bj/  and  for  it ;  it  is,  therefore,  as  Kant 
said,  both  means  and  end.  Add,  finally,  that  in  the  cell  itself,  considered  as 
nucleus  of  life,  all  the  parts  are  correlatives  to  the  whole,  and  the  whole  to  the 
parts. 

2  Cuvier,  Le<;ons  d'anatomie  compar^e,  t.  i.  Ire  le(;ou,  art.  iv. 


THE    PRIXCIPLE.  40 

the  claws,  the  chxws  to  the  teeth,  the  organs  of  motion,  and 
the  organ  of  intelligence.'  ^  Cuvier  affirms,  again,  that  the 
same  law  even  regulates  each  particular  system  of  organs. 
Thus,  in  the  alimentary  system,  '  the  form  of  the  teeth,  the 
length,  the  folds,  and  the  dilatation  of  the  alimentary  canal, 
the  number  and  abundance  of  the  dissolving  juices  which  are 
poured  into  it,  are  always  in  an  admirable  relation  between 
themselves,  and  with  the  nature,  hardness,  and  solubility  of 
the  substances  which  the  animal  eats.'  ^  .  .  .  The  general 
relations  engender  others  which  are  more  particular.  '  In 
order  that  the  jaw  may  seize,'  says  he,  'it  needs  a  certain 
projecting  form,  a  certain  relation  between  the  position  of 
the  resistance  and  that  of  the  power  to  the  fulcrum,  a  cer- 
tain size  of  the  crotaphite  muscle,  which  requires  a  certain 
extent  in  the  hole  that  receives  it,  and  a  certain  convexity  of 
the  zygomatic  arcade  under  which  it  passes,'  etc.^ 

.  .  .  '  In  order  that  the  claws  may  be  able  to  seize,  a  certain 
mobilit}^  in  the  toes  will  be  necessary,  a  certain  strength  in 
the  nails,  whence  there  will  result  determinate  forms  in  all  the 
phalanges,  and  necessary  distributions  of  muscles  and  of  ten- 
dons. It  will  be  necessary  that  the  fore-arm  have  a  certain 
«ase  in  turning,  from  whence,  again,  will  result  determinate 
forms  in  the  bones  which  compose  it.  But  the  bones  of  the 
fore-arm,  being  articulated  on  the  humerus,  cannot  change 
their  forms  without  involving  changes  in  the  latter.  .  .  . 
The  play  of  all  these  parts  will  require  certain  proportions 
in  all  their  muscles,  and  the  impressions  of  these  muscles, 
thus  proportioned,  will  again  determine  more  particularly  the 
form  of  the  bones.'  * 

The  same  is  the  case  with  functions  as  with  organs ;  they 
are  indissolubly  bound  to  each  other,  and  responsible  for  each 
other.  '  Respiration,'  says  Flourens,^  '  when  it  takes  j^lace  in 
a  circumscribed  respiratory  organ,  cannot  dispense  with  the 

1  Cuvier,  Discouis  siir  les  revolutions  du  (jlobe. 

2  Leqons  d'anatomie  compar€e.  Ire  le9on.  3  Revolutions  du  ylobe. 
*  Ibid.                                                      5  Flourens,  Travaux  de  Cuvier,  p.  87. 


50  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  I, 

circulation,  for  the  blood  must  arrive  in  the  respiratory  organ, 
in  the  organ  which  receives  the  air,  and  it  is  the  circulation 
which  conducts  it  thither ;  the  circulation  cannot  dispense 
with  irritability,  for  it  is  irritability  which  determines  the 
contractions  of  the  heart,  and  consequently  the  movements  of 
the  blood ;  muscular  irritability  cannot,  in  its  turn,  dispense 
with  nervous  action.  And  if  one  of  these  things  change,  all 
the  others  must  change.  If  the  circulation  fail,  the  respiration 
can  no  longer  be  circumscribed ;  it  must  become  general,  as  in 
insects.  The  blood  no  longer  coming  to  seek  the  air,  the  air 
must  go  in  search  of  the  blood.  There  are,  therefore,  organic 
conditions  which  require  each  other ;  there  are  those  which 
are  incompatible.  A  circumscribed  respiration  requires  of 
necessity  a  pulmonary  circulation ;  a  general  respiration  ren- 
ders a  pulmonary  circulation  useless,  and  excludes  it.  The 
strength  of  motions  is  in  a  constant  dependence  on  the  extent 
of  respiration,  for  it  is  respiration  which  restores  to  muscular 
fibre  its  exhausted  irritability.  There  are  four  kinds  of 
movements,  which  correspond  to  the  four  degrees  of  respira- 
tion :  the  flight  of  the  bird,  which  corresponds  to  the  double 
respiration ;  the  walking,  leaping,  or  running  of  mammalia, 
which  correspond  to  complete  but  simple  respiration ;  the 
crawling  of  the  reptile,  a  motion  by  which  the  animal  only 
drags  itself  upon  the  ground ;  and  the  swimming  of  the  fish, 
a  motion  for  which  the  animal  requires  to  be  sustained  in  a 
liquid  whose  specific  gravit}^  is  almost  equal  to  its  own.' 

In  order  to  explain  without  a  final  cause  these  innumerable 
correlations,  we  must  suppose  that  while  physical  causes  are  at 
work  on  the  one  hand  to  produce  certain  organs,  other  causes 
are  found  to  produce  at  the  same  time  other  organs  in  neces- 
sary correlation  with  the  first.  How  have  two  systems  of 
laws,  acting  thus  separately  and  blindly,  been  able  to  coincide 
in  a  manner  so  astonishing  in  their  common  action?  I  under- 
stand, strictly,  that  physical  nature,  left  to  itself,  may  come  to 
create  cutting  teeth  ;  but  I  cannot  comprehend  why  the  same 
nature   produces   at   the   same   time    claws   and  not  hoofs. 


THE   PRINCIPLE.  51 

Neighbouring  organs  can  doubtless  modify  themselves  recip- 
rocally, and  adapt  themselves  to  each  other ;  but  how  shall 
the  action  of  the  heart  put  itself  in  harmony  with  that  of  the 
lungs  ?  How  shall  the  organs  of  respiration  put  themselves 
in  harmony  with  the  organs  of  motion?  If,  in  place  of 
admitting  distinct  causes  which  converge  towards  each  other, 
we  admit  only  one,  we  must  recognise  that  the  things  occur 
exactly  as  if  that  cause  had  determined  to  act  by  a  sort  of 
anticipating  idea  of  the  effect;  and  till  there  be  proof  to  the 
<;ontrary,  the  presumption  is  in  favour  of  this  hypothesis.  The 
organic  correlations  remarkably  verify  the  principle  to  which 
Kant  reduces  finality  —  namely,  the  predetermination  of  the 
parts  by  the  idea  of  the  whole.  This  foreordination  of  the 
parts  to  the  whole  —  this  anticipated  government  of  parts  by 
the  whole,  and  the  agreement  of  that  whole  itself  with  that 
general  phenomenon  which  is  called  life  —  seems,  indeed,  to 
indicate  that  the  whole  is  not  a  simple  effect,  but  also  a  cause, 
and  that  the  parts  would  not  have  effected  that  arrangement 
if  the  whole  had  not  beforehand  commanded  it. 

This  predisposition  and  foreordination  of  the  present  by 
the  future  is  again  particularly  visible  in  the  formation  of 
the  organized  being. 

All  the  germs  of  animals,  without  exception,  at  the  first 
moment  when  the  eye  of  the  observer  can  seize  them,  present 
an  appearance  absolutely  similar.  At  this  first  stage  the  germ 
does  not  permit  the  future  being  wliich  it  contains  in  any 
manner  to  appear.  More  than  this,  the  first  transformations 
of  the  germ  appear  alike  identical  in  all  animals  without 
exception,  until  the  moment  when  the  exterior  layers  of  the 
germ  commence  to  take  the  form  of  an  organized  tissue  or 
blastoderm.  The  germ  then  becomes  an  embryo,  and  begins 
to  be  divided  between  the  different  essential  forms  of  the 
animal  kingdom,  the  form  of  the  vertebrates  and  the  form  of 
the  invertebrates.  This  development  continues,  always  pro- 
ceeding from  the  general  to  the  particular,  from  the  indeter- 
minate to  the  determinate,  from  the  chief  division  to  the  class, 


52  BOOK   I.   CHAPTER  I. 

from  the  class  to  the  tribe,  from  the  tribe  to  the  genus,  from 
the  genus  to  the  species.  In  a  word,  its  development  is  a  pro- 
gressive differentiation.  But  it  is  not  indifferently  that  such 
a  germ  takes  such  a  form ;  it  is  not  free,  quite  indeterminate 
though  it  be,  either  to  be  vertebrate  or  invertebrate  ;  if  verte- 
brate, to  be  mammifer,  bird,  reptile,  or  fish ;  if  mammifer,  to- 
belong  to  this  or  that  species.  No ;  it  can  only  take  the 
determinate  form  of  the  being  from  which  it  proceeds,  and  it 
is  necessarily  like  its  parents,  save  the  remarkable  cases  of 
alternate  generation,  which  themselves  revert  to  the  rule, 
since  the  same  forms  recur  periodically,  though  alternately. 
Formerly,  on  the  theory  of  the  junction  of  germs,  the  growth 
of  the  germ  was  explained  in  an  entirely  physical  manner,  — 
the  embryo  was  nothing  else  than  the  animal  in  miniature ; 
its  development  was  only  enlargement.  But  according  to  the 
theory  now  universally  accepted,  the  animal  is  formed  piece 
by  piece,  and  successively  creates  all  its  organs  by  assimi- 
lating little  by  little  the  exterior  parts,  and  arranging  them 
according  to  the  type  to  which  it  belongs,  in  proceeding,  as 
we  have  said,  from  the  general  to  the  particular.  How  can 
we  imagine  this  labour  without  a  kind  of  previous  conception 
of  all  that  these  successive  additions  had  to  form,  and  which 
is  the  reason  of  each  of  these  accretions  ?  ^  Thus  the  embryo 
completes  itself  little  by  little,  as  if  it  had  a  model  before  it. 
We  have  here,  indeed,  the  \6yo<;  cnrepiJ.aTLKo<;  of  the  Stoics  — 
that  secret  and  active  reason  placed  in  the  seeds  of  things, 
and  which,  conscious  or  unconscious,  is  the  spring  of  life  in 
the  universe. 

In  fine,  of  all  the  facts  of  co-ordination,  there  is  none  more 
remarkable,  complex,  and  troublesome,  for  the  exclusive 
partisans  of  physical  causes,  than  the  existence  of  the  sexes 
—  that  is  to  say,  of  the  means  employed  by  nature  for  the 

1  '  AVlicn  the  question  is  about  an  organic  evolution  ivhich  is  in  the  future,'' 
says  CI.  Bernard,  '  we  no  longer  comprehend  this  property  of  matter  at  long 
range.    The  ogg  is  to  become  something  ;  but  how  conceive  that  matter  should 
have  as  a  property  to  include  operations  of  mechanism  which  do  not  yet  exist  ? 
-  Rapport  sur  la  physioloc/ie  r/^n€7xUc,  p.  110. 


THE  PRINCIPLE.  53- 

perpetuation   of  species.     Here  there  are  several  things  to 
remark. 

In  fact,  the  question  is  no  longer  merely  as  hitherto  con- 
cerning the  appropriateness  of  an  organ  to  a  function,  but, 
what  is  still  more  striking,  of  an  organ  to  another  organ.  In 
the  first  case,  the  function  being  nothing  but  the  aggregate  of 
the  acts  executed  by  the  organ,  one  might  say  in  utmost  strict- 
ness that  it  is  not  astonishing  that  the  organ  is  fitted  to  pro- 
duce the  acts  it  performs,  for  otherwise  it  would  not  perform 
them ;  that  it  is  not  astonishing  that  a  cause  which  produces 
certain  effects  is  fitted  to  produce  those  effects.  But  in  the 
case  now  before  us  such  a  difficulty  cannot  even  be  raised,  for 
it  is  not  the  appropriateness  of  a  cause  to  its  effect  that  we  here 
admire,  it  is  the  appropriateness  of  an  organ  to  another  organ  ; 
it  is  an  entirely  mechanical  adaptation  of  two  apparatus, 
distinct,  yet  so  bound  together  that  the  form  of  the  one  is 
determined  by  the  form  of  the  other ;  a  reciprocal  determina- 
tion which  evidently  supposes  a  relation  in  the  future  in 
inverse  direction  to  the  ordinary  relation  of  cause  and  effect. 
These  two  organic  apparatus,  sometimes  united,  but  most 
frequently  separated  into  two  distinct  individuals,  are  both 
and  reciprocally  in  a  relation  of  means  to  ends ;  for  we  could 
not  explain  to  ourselves  the  extraordinary  coincidence  cf 
their  reciprocal  adaptation,  if  we  did  not  suppose  that  the 
very  possibilit}-  of  this  adaptation  has  been  the  determining 
reason  which  has  made  them  take  this  double  form.  Here  it 
can  no  longer  be  said  that  we  are  taking  a  simple  effect  for 
an  end,  a  result  for  an  intention.  The  organs  of  the  sexes 
are  not  the  effects  of  each  other ;  the  male  organ  is  not  the 
cause  of  the  female  organ,  nor  reciprocally.  Those  two  organs 
are  two  distinct  and  independent  effects,  and  yet  they  can 
only  be  explained  the  one  by  the  other,  which  is  precisely 
the  relation  of  finality.  The  shift  which  explains  the  relation 
of  agent  to  function  by  a  simple  relation  of  cause  to  effect  is 
therefore  not  available  here,  for  there  is  manifest  apj>ropriate- 
ness  without  causality. 


54  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  I. 

Let  us  contider,  besides,  that  the  appropriateness  in  question 
IS  not  merely  a  correlation  of  organs,  a  harmonious  concur- 
rence of  functions,  as  in  the  law  of  Cuvier.  It  is  something 
.still  more  palpable ;  it  is  a  mechanical  and  material  adapta- 
tion, a  relation  of  form  to  form,  of  structure  to  structure. 
Without  doubt,  in  the  organism  all  the  parts,  as  we  have  seen, 
.are  in  relation  to  the  others  —  the  heart  concurs  with  the 
lungs,  the  brain  with  the  members,  in  a  common  action.  But 
this  is  only  a  co-operation,  a  work  in  common ;  and  although 
the  end  is  already  clearly  and  evidently  manifest  in  that  case, 
it  is  always  merely  a  quite  intelligible  unity  of  action.  In  the 
■case  of  which  we  are  speaking,  the  co-operation  is  of  a  much 
more  palpable  nature,  for  it  supposes  the  application  of  one  or- 
gan to  another,  and  a  momentary  junction  which  blends  them 
into  one,  a  phenomenon  which  could  not  take  place  without  a 
perfect  coincidence  of  form  and  structure.^  For  this  reason 
Plato  could  say,  in  a  celebrated  fable,  that  the  two  sexes  are 
the  two  halves  of  one  whole  —  halves  which  seek  to  be  joined 
in  order  to  reconstruct  the  primitive  whole.  This  marvellous 
reciprocal  adaptation  cannot  be  considered  as  a  simple  result 
of  habit  and  meeting,  as  if  it  were  said,  for  instance,  that  the 
just  form  of  the  articulations  of  the  bones  simply  arises  from 
the  play  of  the  organs  upon  each  other ;  for  here  the  habit 
.and  meeting,  so  far  from  explaining  it,  suppose  precisely  the 
formation  of  the  organs.  In  order  that  there  may  be  a  meet- 
ing, there  must  already  have  been  adaptation  and  reciprocity 
of  convenience  ;  and  it  cannot  be  said  that  this  adaptation  has 
been  made  in  course  of  time,  for  as  the  species  could  not  subsist 
without  it,  it  would  have  perished  before  it  had  been  formed. 

In  fine,  if  there  were  only  between  the  organs  of  sex  a 
simple  conformity  of  structure  and  a  material  adaptation,  but 
without  useful  effect,  one  could  still  admire  this  coincidence 
without  being  absolutely  forced  to  see  in  it  a  relation  of  final- 
ity.    For  instance,  the  hand  of  a  man  is  very  fit  to  be  applied 

1  Tho  difference  of  the  sexes  may  occur  without  copulation,  but  we  instance 
here  the  most  remarkable  case. 


THE   PRINCIPLE,  65 

to  the  hand  of  another  man ;  it  would,  however,  hardly  seem 
probable  to  say  that  nature  has  given  men  this  organ  in  order 
that  they  might  be  able  to  shake  hands.  This  quite  external 
adaptation  which  results  from  the  structure  of  the  hand  does 
not  imply  a  reciprocal  predisposition.  But  in  the  sexes,  be- 
sides the  appropriateness  of  organ  to  organ,  there  is  further 
that  of  organ  to  function ;  and  it  is  the  meeting  of  these  two 
adaptations  which  causes  in  this  case  finality  to  be  imposed 
on  the  mind  in  a  manner  so  imperious  and  so  overpowering. 
In  fine,  this  unique  function,  performed  by  two  organs,  is 
precisely  that  by  which  the  individual  secures  the  perpetuity 
of  the  species,  and  that  without  knowing  and  without  willing 
it,  at  least  in  the  inferior  species.  Thus  in  all  the  degrees  of 
the  phenomenon,  we  see  the  determination  of  the  present  by 
the  future  :  the  structure  of  the  two  organs  is  only  explained 
by  the  fact  of  their  meeting ;  their  meeting,  by  the  functiou 
which  results  from  it ;  the  function,  in  fine,  by  its  effect,  which 
is  the  production  of  a  new  being,  itself  called  in  its  turn  to 
perpetuate  and  to  immortalize  the  species.  Here  the  order 
of  causes  is  manifestly  reversed,  and  whatever  Lucretius  and 
Spinoza  may  say,  it  is  the  effects  that  are  the  causes. 

To  all  the  preceding  considerations  it  will  no  doubt  be 
objected  that  if  matters  are  so,  it  is  because  they  could  not 
subsist  otherwise.  Without  the  sexes  the  species  could  not 
be  reproduced,  and  would  cease  to  exist  after  one  generation ; 
without  adaptation  to  the  medium,  without  the  concordance 
of  the  organs,  the  individual  itself  would  not  endure,  or  would 
not  even  exist:  there  would  be  no  life  in  the  universe.  Conse- 
quently it  will  be  said,  with  Maupertuis,  that '  in  the  fortuitous 
combination  of  the  productions  of  nature,  as  it  was  only  those 
in  which  certain  relations  of  convenience  were  found  that 
could  subsist,  it  is  not  wonderful  that  this  convenience  is 
found  in  all  the  species  that  actually  exist.  Chance,  it  might 
be  said,  had  produced  an  innumerable  multitude  of  individu- 
als: a  small  number  were  found  constructed  so  that  the  parts 
-of  the  animal  could  satisfy  their  wants ;  in  an  infinitely  greater 


66  BOOK  I.   CHAPTER  I. 

number  there  was  neither  convenience  nor  order ;  all  these 
last  have  perished.  Animals  without  a  mouth  could  not  live ; 
others  without  organs  for  generation  could  not  be  perpetuated. 
The  only  ones  that  have  remained  are  those  in  which  order 
and  convenience  were  found,  and  those  species  which  we  now 
see  are  only  the  smaller  part  of  what  a  blind  destiny  had 
produced.^ 

This  hypothesis  of  a  groping  of  nature,  and  of  a  period  of 
disordered  parturition,  said  to  have  preceded  rational  produc- 
tions such  as  we  see  them  now,  is  contrary  to  all  that  we 
know  of  the  processes  of  nature.  No  trace  subsists  of  this 
^  period  of  chaos,  and  everything  leads  to  the  belief  that,  if 
nature  had  begun  by  chaos,  it  would  never  have  come  out 
of  it. 

Doubtless  it  would  be  wrong  to  wonder  that  works  are  not 
met  with  in  nature  which  are  ip^o  facto  impossible  —  for 
instance,  animals  without  organs  of  nutrition  or  generation 
(although,  indeed,  it  is  not  evident  why  nature  in  its  freaks, 
and  in  the  countless  arrangements  of  its  elements,  should  not 
produce  even  now  rough  draughts  of  organisms,  loose  members, 
and,  as  Empedocles  said,  heads  without  bodies,  bodies  without 
heads,  etc.).  But  without  inquiring  how  far  such  rough 
draughts  would  be  possible,  on  the  hypothesis  of  a  blind 
nature,  I  will  grant,  if  you  please,  that  there  is  no  room  for 
wonder  that  such  specimens  are  not  met  with  around  us.  But 
what  gives  cause  for  wonder  is,  not  that  beings  incapable  of 
living  have  not  lived,  but  that  beings  capable  of  living  are 
met  with;  for  such  beings  might  not  have  existed  at  all.  No 
doubt,  given  organized  beings,  it  is  a  thing  of  course  that  they 
should  have  appropriate  organs,  but  that  such  beings  should 
be  given  (which  require  such  conditions),  herein  lies  the  dif- 
ficulty. It  is  not  enough  to  show  that  absurd  arrangements 
are  impossible ;  it  would  be  necessary  to  prove  that  such 
reasonable  arrangements  (namely,  those  which  exist)  are 
necessary.    This  is  by  no  means  evident ;  for  nature  was  able 

1  Cosmologie,  Works,  t.  i.  p.  11. 


THE   PRINCIPLE.  57 

long  to  dispense  with  organized  beings,  and  there  was  no 
reason  why  it  should  not  dispense  with  them  always.  It  still 
remains,  then,  to  explain  how  a  conflict  of  forces  can  at  a 
given  moment  have  brought  about  a  result  so  complicated, 
and  requiring  so  appropriate  a  mechanism,  as  life. 

It  is  said  that  chance  was  quite  able  to  produce  all  sorts  of 
beings,  and  that  among  those  beings  they  alone  have  survived 
that  could  survive.  But  it  has  never  been  explained  how  it 
is  that  beings  are  only  produced  at  present  where  relations 
of  convenience  exist.  They  get  out  of  this  by  explanations 
addressed  to  the  imagination  rather  than  the  mind.  The  f 
great  matrix,  it  is  said,  was  in  its  first  state  more  malleable, 
flexible,  and  fit  to  take  all  sorts  of  forms ;  at  present  it  is  ] 
fixed,  and  in  its  sterility  can  now  only  reproduce  types  already  | 
produced.  Is  not  this  to  say  that  nothing,  absolutely  nothing 
in  experience  warrants  us  to  suppose  that  such  things  have 
ever  happened  ?  The  very  limitation  of  the  number  of  actual 
species  is  a  fact  hard  to  explain,  for  it  is  strange  that  nature 
is  found  to  have  exactly  attained  and  exhausted  all  its 
fecundity;  and  even  when  it  had  produced  all  that  can 
reasonably  subsist,  one  does  not  see  why  it  should  not  con- 
tinue to  produce  unformed  draughts,  and  why  it  should  have 
stopped  in  the  course  of  its  freaks  and  aberrations. 

But  it  will  be  said,  do  we  not  see  such  aberrations  daily 
produced,  namely  monsters?  Nature  clearly  proves  in  such 
productions  that  it  creates  things  as  they  happen,  sometimes 
good,  sometimes  bad,  sometimes  fair,  sometimes  hideous,  some- 
times reasonable,  sometimes  absurd.  In  our  view,  the  exist- 
ence of  monsters  in  no  way  proves  the  hypothesis  of  a  groping 
of  nature  and  of  a  primitive  chaotic  state  having  preceded 
the  period  of  regular  organization.  In  fact,  monsters  them- 
selves suppose  well-regulated  organisms  ;  they  are  only  pro- 
duced by  generation,  and  none  have  ever  been  seen  that  were  , 
the  immediate  products  of  nature :  there  is  no  example  of  the  ' 
spontaneous  generation  of  monsters.  Even  those  that  are 
artificially  produced  always  have,  as  the  point  of  departure 


58  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  I. 

the  succession  of  normal   beings.     Hence   it  follows    a  ^t 

monsters  suppose  normal  beings;  they  are  only  the  deviat'on 

from  the  ordinary  laws  of  generation,  therefore  they  are  but 

an  accident.     The  rule  and  the  law  here  precede  the  excep- 

/    tion.     It  cannot,  consequently,  be  supposed  that  it  was  in 

consequence  of  an  infinite  number  of  accidents  oi  this  kind 

that  the  normal  state  at  length  one  day  was  established.    No 

doubt,  this  normal  state  once  given,  one  can  understand  that 

by  a  conflict  of  causes  deviations  are  produced,  chat  is,  con- 

1  genital  deformities ;   for  deformities,  as  well  bs  infirmities, 

,  maladies,  and  death,  are  only  the  results  of  the  rencounter 

'  and  conflict  of  physical  and  vital  laws.     But  i\  would  be  to 

reverse  the  terms,  and  to  make  order  of  disorder,  according 

to  a  famous  expression,  to  consider  monsters  as  the  types  of 

the  primitive  state,  and  normal  beings  as  happy  accidents. 

I  am  no  more  impressed  with  the  argument  drawn  from 
fossil  species,  which,  it  is  said,  would  give  us  the  example  of 
these  gropings  by  which  nature  had  progressively  been  raised, 
fossils  being  only  in  some  sort  the  embryos  of  actual  spe- 
cies.^ 

I  have  not  to  discuss  this  last  theory  ;   I  leave  that  to  the 
naturalists.     Good  sense,  however,  suggests  at  once  an  objec- 
tion so  natural,  that  I  cannot  believe  that  the  theory  in  ques- 
tion is  anything  but  a  hyperbolical  expression,  and  in  some 
I  sort  a  metaphor.     In  effect,  embryos  do  not  reproduce  them- 
1  selves,  but  the  fossil  species  reproduced  themselves  like  our 
I  own.    They  had,  therefore,  an  entire  system  of  organs  and  of 
functions,  that  are  awanting  in  actual  embryos ;  hence  a  differ- 
ence which  is  not  small,  and  which  must  involve  others.     I 
leave  aside  the  fact  of  intra-uterine  life,  or  of  incubation,  to 
which  actual  embryos  are  subject,  while  in  the  fossil  species 
individuals  attained  as  in  ours  to  an  independent  life.     It 
seems,  then,  to  be  only  by  metaphor  that  fossil  animals  are 
considered  as  the  embryos  of  actual  species.     I  will  say  as 

1  We  know  that  Agassiz  has  strongly  insisted  on  the  analogies  of  the  fossila 
with  actual  embryos. 


THE   PRINCIPLE.  59 

much  of  the  theory,  strongly  opposed  by  Cuvier,  according 
to  which  all  animals  would  be,  as  it  were,  arrests  of  develop- 
ment in  relation  to  the  typical,  that  is,  the  human  form. 
Aristotle  had  already  expressed  the  same  thought  in  this 
famous  aphorism  :  '  The  animal  is  an  unfinished  man.'  ^  As 
a  metaphorical  and  hyperbolical  expression,  this  is  an  admir- 
able thought;  as  an  exact  theory,  it  is  very  disputable. 

Whatever  else  may  be  in  it,  the  scale  of  nature,  in  what- 
ever manner  understood,  has  nothing  that  lends  itself  to  the 
interpretation  they  would  wish  to  give  it.  No  doubt  the  infe- 
rior species  have  imperfect  forms  in  relation  to  the  superior 
—  it  is  better  to  have  the  wings  of  the  bird  than  the  flaps  of 
reptiles,  the  brain  of  man  than  that  of  the  oyster ;  and  one 
can  also  believe  that  the  fossil  species  were  less  endowed  than 
those  of  the  present ;  but  more  or  less  in  the  distribution  of 
advantages  and  of  forms  does  not  at  all  imply  an  elaboration 
of  chance  in  the  formation  of  living  beings.  Every  being 
that  lives,  being  even  thereby  organized  to  live,  be  that  life 
humble  or  powerful,  contains  relations  of  finality  and  design ; 
between  this  being,  however  humble,  and  a  purely  fortuitous 
product,  a  freak  of  nature,  there  is  already  an  abyss,  and  the 
latter  can  never  have  served  as  a  transition  to  the  former. 
In  the  polyp  I  see  finality  as  well  as  in  the  vertebrates,  and 
the  tentacles  by  which  it  seizes  its  prey  are  as  appropriate  to 
their  use  as  the  claws  of  the  tiger  or  the  hand  of  man. 

The  progressive  development  of  forms,  far  from  being 
opposed  to  the  theory  of  finality,  is  eminently  favourable 
to  it.  What  more  simple  and  more  rational  law  could  have 
presided  over  creation  than  that  of  a  progressive  evolution, 
in  virtue  of  which  the  world  must  have  seen  forms,  more 
and  more  finished,  successively  appear  ?  Will  it  be  said  that 
nature  could  have  spared  itself  imperfect  and  coarse  forms, 
and  confined  itself  to  perfect  and  finished  ones?  But  to  which 
will  this  quality  be  accorded  ?  The  highest  of  the  animals  are 
still  inferior  to  man.     Man  alone,  therefore,  should  have  been 

^  De  Part,    Anim.  rV.  X.:    TlavTo.  ydp   eo-Ti   ri   ZCia  vaviifiTj   TaAAa   iropa   Tbi>   avBpoiirov. 


60  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  I. 

created.  But  could  he  subsist  if  he  were  alone  ?  And  could 
the  superior  animals  also  without  the  inferior,  and  so  on  to 
the  lowest  steps  of  the  scale  ?  And  besides,  since  all  these 
creatures  could  be,  why  refuse  them  existence  ?  The  animal 
called  the  sloth  appears  to  us  to  have  sad  enough  conditions  of 
existence ;  but  if  it  can  live  under  these  conditions,  why  should 
it  not  take  advantage  of  them  ?  Poverty  of  organization  is 
a  thing  entirely  relative;  and  perhaps  it  was  worth  more 
that  all  the  forms  capable  of  enduring  have  been  created,  in 
order  that  there  might  be  beings  of  all  kinds,^  than  if  nature 
had  confined  itself  to  the  most  perfect,  even  supposing  that 
that  were  possible. 

To  sum  up  :  If  it  be  agreed  to  apply  the  term  principle  of 
concordance  to  the  principle  in  virtue  of  which  the  human 
mind  requires  that  we  explain  not  only  each  phenomenon  in 
particular,  but  also  the  order  and  agreement  of  phenomena, 
that  principle  will  assume  two  forms,  or  will  be  divided  into 
two  distinct  principles. 

The  first  will  be  applicable  to  the  physical  and  mechanical 
order,  and  may  be  called  the  principle  of  mechanical  concord- 
ance ;  ^  the  second  will  be  applicable  to  the  biological  order, 
and  may  be  called  the  principle  of  teleological  concordance,  or 
principle  of  final  causes. 

I.  First  principle.  —  When  a  certain  coincidence  of  phe- 
nomena is  remarked  constantly,  it  does  not  suffice  to  attach 
each  phenomenon  in  particular  to  its  antecedent  causes ;  it 

1  Bossuet  has  expressed  this  admirably : '  It  is  a  beautiful  design  to  have  been 
pleased  to  make  all  sorts  of  beings,  —  beings  that  had  only  extension,  with  all 
belonging  to  it,  figure,  motion,  rest,  all  that  depends  on  the  proportion  or 
disproportion  of  these  things;  beings  that  had  only  intellect,  and  all  that  is 
akin  to  so  noble  an  opera-tion,  wisdom,  reason,  foresight,  will,  liberty,  virtue; 
in  fine,  beings  where  all  was  united,  and  where  an  intelligent  soul  was  found 
joined  to  a  body.'  —  Connaissance  de  Dieu,  iv.  1. 

2  Perhaps  it  will  be  thought  that  it  is  granting  too  much  to  give  up  thus  to 
material  causes  all  the  physical  and  mechanical  world,  to  recognise  a  principle 
of  order  which  is  not  finality.  Sulfice  it  to  reply,  that  that  is  only  a  provisional 
view,  required  by  the  necessity  of  method  and  clearness  of  exposition  (StSaa-KaMa^ 
\apiv),  but  upon  which  there  may  be  opportunity  to  come  back.  C^ee  under 
chap,  v.,  Mechanism  and  Finaliti/.) 


THE   PRINCIPLE.  61 

is  necessary  also  to  give  a  precise  reason  for  the  coincidence 
itself. 

Li  other  words.  —  The  agreement  of  phenomena  supposes 
a  precise  cause,  with  a  probability  which  is  in  proportion  to 
the  number  and  the  diversity  of  the  concordant  phenomena. 

II.  Second  principle.  —  When  a  certain  coincidence  of  phe 
nomena  is  determined,  not  only  by  its  relation  to  the  past, 
but  also  by  its  relation  to  the  future,  we  will  not  have  done 
justice  to  the  principle  of  causality  if,  in  supposing  a  cause 
for  this  coincidence,  we  neglect  to  explain,  besides,  its  precise 
relation  to  the  future  phenomenon. 

In  other  words. — The  agreement  of  several  phenomena, 
bound  together  with  a  future  determinate  phenomenon,  sup- 
poses a  cause  in  which  that  future  phenomenon  is  ideally 
represented,  and  the  probability  of  this  presumption  increases 
with  the  complexity  of  the  concordant  phenomena  and  the 
number  of  the  relations  which  unite  them  to  the  final 
phenomenon. 


CHAPTER    II. 

THE  FACTS. 

/^UR  intention  is  not  to  reproduce  here  the  innumerable 
^^  facts,  so  usefully  enumerated  elsewhere  in  treatises  of 
physical  theology,^  which  bear  in  favour  of  finality.  We  shall 
rest  content  with  mentioning  a  certain  number  of  them,  and 
those  the  chief,  by  way  of  examples  and  to  fix  our  ideas. 

The  operations  of  living  nature,  in  which  we  can  recognise 
In  a  striking  manner  the  character  of  finality,  are  of  two 
"kinds,  functions  and  instincts.  The  former  can  be  defined  as 
the  interior  actions  of  the  organs ;  the  latter  as  the  exterior 
actions  of  these  organs,  and  in  particular  of  the  organs  of 
relation.  As  regards  the  functions,  we  will  chiefly  instance 
the  agreement  of  the  organic  mechanism  with  the  function  ; 

1  The  treatises  of  physical  theology,  especially  of  the  18th  century,  are  in- 
numerable, and  would  by  themselves  form  quite  a  library.  The  principal  works 
of  this  kind  are  the  following:  —  Derham,  Physico-theology  (London  1714); 
Astro-theology  (1715).  John  Ray,  Wisdom  of  God  in  the  Works  of  Creation 
(1714).  Swammerdam,  Bibel  der  Natur  (1738).  Reimarus,  La  religion 
naturelle  (1754).  Ch.  Bonnet,  Contemplation  de  la  nature  (1764).  Paley, 
Natural  Theology  (the  last  edition  is  accompanied  with  notes  by  Lord  Brougham 
and  Ch.  Bell);  a  theology  was  at  last  derived  from  all  the  objects  of  nature. 
The  naturalist  Lesser  is  above  all  remarkable  for  his  works  of  this  kind.  "We 
have  by  him:  Hdio-theologie  (1744);  Litho-theologie  (1757);  Testaceo-tMologie 
(1744);  Insecto-thMogie,  etc.  Let  us  cite  further  the  Th^ologie  de  I'eau,  by 
Fabricius  (1741).  In  France  the  works  of  this  kind  have  been  much  less 
numerous.  We  will  mention  the  Traits  de  l' existence  de  Dieu,  by  Fe'nelon; 
the  Spectacle  de  la  nature,  by  the  Abbe  Pluche;  the  Etudes  and  the  Harmonies 
de  la  nature,  by  Bernardin  de  Saint-Pierre  (a  work  in  which  imagination  abounds 
more  than  severe  science  and  good  logic;  and  finally,  of  our  own  time,  the 
TJi^ologie  de  la  nature,  by  Strauss  Durckeim  (Paris  1852);  and  the  Harmonies 
Providentielles  of  M.  Ch.  Leveque  (Paris  1872).  As  to  the  philosophical  and 
logical  analysis  of  the  principle  of  final  causes  in  itself,  it  was  rare  in  the  17th 
century  before  Kant.  Let  us  mention  only  the  little  work,  unhappily  unfin- 
ished, of  Lesage  of  Geneva,  inserted  in  the  Notice  sur  la  vie  et  les  travaux  de 
Lesage,  by  Prevost  (see  our  appendix.  Dissertation  III.,  Lesage  and  Final 
Causes);  and  BouUier,  Discours  philosophiques  s^lr  les  causes  finales  et  Virvrtie  de 
lu  matiere,  Amsterdam  1759. 
62 


THE  FACTS.  65 

as  regards  the  instincts,  the  agreement  of  the  functional 
mechanism  with  the  effect  to  be  produced.  That  which  ia 
most  striking  from  our  point  of  view,  in  function,  is  the 
structure  of  the  organ,  and  in  instinct,  is  the  operation  it- 
self. 

I.  Organs  and  Functions}  —  Of  all  the  facts  of  adaptation, 
the  most  striking  is  the  structure  of  the  eye  in  its  relation  to 
the  act  of  vision.  It  is,  we  may  say,  the  classical  argument 
in  this  matter.  It  would  be  a  vain  scruple  to  deprive  our- 
selves of  so  arresting  and  marvellous  an  instance  merely 
because  it  is  so  well  known,  and  become  common  by  use. 
What  occurs  in  its  own  place  is  never  common.  Let  us  try, 
then,  to  set  before  ourselves  the  difficulties  of  the  problem, 
and  the  innumerable  conditions  which  its  solution  requires.^ 

The  first  condition  in  order  that  vision  may  be  performed 
is  the  existence  of  a  nerve  sensible  to  the  light.  That  is  a 
primordial  fact,  which  it  is  not  possible  to  explain,  and  beyond 
which,  till  now,  analysis  is  unable  to  proceed.  There  must 
therefore  be  a  nerve  endowed  with  a  specific  sensibility,  which 
cannot  in  any  way  be  confounded  with  tactile  sensibility. 
But  a  nerve  simply  sensible  to  the  light  would  only  serve  tO" 
distinguish  day  from  night ;  but  to  discern  objects,  to  see 
veritably,  something  more  is  necessary,  namely,  an  optical  i 
apparatus  more  or  less  resembling  those  which  human  in- 
dustry can  fabricate.  Observe  what  the  illustrious  German 
physiologist  Miiller  says  on  this  subject : 

'  In  order  that  the  light  may  project  upon  the  retina  the 

1  It  is  needless  to  observe  that  what  we  here  set  forth  are  the  facts  favour- 
»ble  to  the  doctrine  of  finalitJ^  As  to  the  facts  unfavourable  or  contrary,  we- 
will  examine  them  afterwards.  (See  chap.  viii.  Objections  and  Difficulties.)  Let 
it  suffice  to  say  that  the  fact  of  existence,  of  the  development  and  the  duration 
of  life  in  the  universe,  sufficiently  proves  the  preponderance  of  favourable 
cases  over  the  opposite,  for  if  the  latter  prevailed  in  number,  it  is  evident  that 
life  could  not  exist. 

2  See  on  the  same  question  not  only  the  treatises  we  have  just  named,  but 
a  work  written  in  an  altogether  different  spirit,  the  Philosophy  of  the  Uncon- 
scious, by  Hartmann.  The  author  (Introd.  chap,  ii.)  enumerates  fourteen 
distinct  conditions  necessary  to  vision,  and  reduces  to  an  infinitely  small 
fraction  (which  may  be  regarded  as  nothing)  the  probability  that  all  these 
conditions  would  be  found  together  in  virtue  of  a  physical  law. 


64  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  11. 

image  of  the  objects  from  which  it  proceeds,  that  which  comes 
from  certain  definite  parts  of  the  external  bodies,  whether 
immediately  or  by  reflection,  must  not  put  in  action  more 
than  corresponding  parts  of  the  retina,  a  thing  which  requires 
certain  physical  conditions.  The  light  which  emanates  from 
a  luminous  body  diffuses  itself  by  radiating  in  all  directions 
where  it  meets  no  obstacle  to  its  passage ;  a  luminous  point 
will  therefore  lighten  a  whole  surface,  not  a  single  point  of 
that  surface.  If  the  surface  which  receives  the  li^ht  radiat- 
ing  from  a  point  is  the  united  surface  of  the  retina,  the  light 
of  that  point  causes  the  sensation  of  light  in  the  whole,  and 
not  merely  in  a  part  of  the  nervous  membrane ;  and  it  is  the 
same  with  all  other  luminous  points  which  may  by  radiation 
illuminate  the  retina.' 

One  easily  understands  that  in  this  case  there  would  not 
be  vision  properly  so  called.  The  entire  retina  without  opti- 
cal apparatus  would  see  nothing  definite ;  it  would  perceive 
light,  but  not  images.  '  Consequently,'  to  continue  our  quo- 
tation from  Miiller,  '  in  order  that  the  external  light  may  pro- 
duce in  the  eye  an  image  corresponding  to  the  bodies,  it  is 
indispensable  that  there  should  be  arrangements  to  cause 
the  light  given  forth  from  the  points  a  b  c  .  .  7i,  to  act 
only  on  isolated  points  of  the  retina  arranged  in  the  same 
order,  and  which  prevent  one  point  of  that  membrane  from 
being  illuminated  at  once  by  several  points  of  the  external 
world.'  1 

It  is  evident  that  distinct  vision  is  a  problem  altogether  of 
the  same  order  as  those  which  the  mechanician  or  geometri- 
cian may  have  to  solve.  For  the  solution  of  problems,  geome- 
try employs  the  analytic  method,  which  supposes  the  problem 
solved.  In  the  same  way,  as  we  have  said  above,^  it  seems 
that  nature  had  to  employ  here  an  analogous  method.  Start- 
ing from  the  hypothesis  of  a  being  that  needs  for  its  guidance 
or  use  to  distinguish  objects  from  each  other,  it  had  to  ask 

1  Miiller,  Mamtel  de  physlologie.    French  translation  by  Jourdan,  t.  ii.  p.  275. 

2  See  the  preceding  chapter,  p.  40. 


THE  FACTS.  65 

itself  what  conditions  such  a  result  previously  supposes. 
Between  the  diffuse  vision,  which  consists  simply  in  distin- 
guishing day  from  night,  and  the  distinct  vision,  which  per- 
ceives images,  there  is  an  abyss  ;  and  an  infinite  number  of 
precautions  and  conditions  is  necessary,  without  which  it 
would  be  impossible  to  pass  from  one  of  those  phenomena  tc 
the  other.  If  we  admit  that  distinct  vision  is  only  a  result 
and  not  an  end,  the  coincidence  of  these  innumerable  precau- 
tions and  conditions  must  be  purely  fortuitous  —  that  is  say, 
have  taken  place  by  chance,  or,  in  other  words,  without 
cause.  In  short,  even  if  a  physical  cause  sufficed  to  account 
for  the  material  structure  of  the  organ,  the  agreement  of  that 
structure,  fashioned  beforehand,  with  a  remote  phenomenon 
which  itself  is  of  the  highest  importance  for  the  preservation 
of  the  living  being,  would  be  quite  an  external  coincidence, 
absolutely  without  a  cause.     Let  us  enter  into  detail. 

In  order  to  attain  the  result  which  we  have  just  indicated, 
nature  might  employ,  and  has  in  fact  employed,  two  different 
systems.  It  has  created  two  kinds  of  apparatus,  the  isolating 
and  the  convergent.  The  first  are  those  which  are  seen  in  the 
eyes  of  insects  and  crustaceans,  and  which  are  called  composite 
eyes,  or  eyes  with  facets ;  the  others  are  met  with  partly  in 
certain  insects  and  crustaceans,  partly  and  specially  in  the 
vertebrate  animals.  '  The  first  of  these  systems,'  to  quote 
Miiller  again,  '  consists  in  placing  before  the  retina,  and  per- 
pendicularly to  it,  an  innumerable  quantity  of  transparent 
cones,  which  allow  to  reach  the  nervous  membrane  only  the 
light  following  the  direction  of  their  axis,  and  absorb  by  means 
of  the  pigment  with  which  their  walls  are  lined  all  that  strikes 
them  obliquely.'  ^  We  see  that  in  this  first  system  nature  has 
proceeded  exactly  as  do  the  physicist  and  the  chemist  in  their 
laboratory,  when,  in  order  to  study  a  phenomenon,  they  find 
means  to  produce  it  and  to  isolate  it  at  the  same  time,  by 
taking  certain  precautions,  that  the  concomitant  circum- 
stances may  not  come  in  to  disturb  the  effect  of  it.     This 

1  Miiller's  Manuel,  p.  277. 


66  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  II. 

combination  of  transparent  cones  with  absorbing  walls,  this 
care  to  make  the  light  come  in  one  direction  and  to  absorb  it 
in  all  others,  recall  the  precautions  of  the  physicist,  who  ex- 
cludes the  air  to  make  bodies  fall  with  equal  rapidity,  who 
dries  them  in  order  to  have  pure  electricity,  who,  in  a  word^ 
removes  obstacles  on  the  one  hand  by  preventive  means,  while 
on  the  other,  by  active  means,  he  evokes  the  phenomenon 
he  wishes  to  study.  Add  to  this  the  amazing  quantity  of 
combinations  which  such  a  system  supposes  (for  they  reckon 
12,000  and  even  20,000  cones  in  a  single  eye),  and  that  to 
these  cones  there  must  correspond  in  the  cornea  as  many 
little  geometrical  divisions  called  facets,  and  that  without  this 
agreement  nothing  would  result.  To  set  aside  in  this  case 
every  final  cause,  we  must  admit  that  while  certain  physical 
and  blind  causes  produced  transparent  cones,  other  physical 
causes,  equally  blind,  prepared  walls  fitted  to  absorb  the  light ; 
that  some  made  the  cones,  and  others  the  corresponding  facets; 
that  other  blind  causes  brought  both  into  harmony,  forced 
them  to  coincide  in  that  combination  —  itself  so  wondrously 
in  harmony  with  a  final  act,  agreeing  in  its  turn  with  the  inter- 
ests of  the  animal.  If  so  amazing  an  assemblage  of  agreements- 
and  conveniences  can  be  produced  by  a  simple  coincidence^ 
there  is  no  longer  a  principle  of  causality. 

But  the  highest  degree  of  skill  and  perfection  in  the  art  of 
nature  is  manifested  above  all  in  the  second  system  of  which 
we  have  spoken,  namely,  in  the  system  of  convergent  appa- 
ratus, or  of  eyes  with  lenses,  such  as  we  meet  with  in  thfr 
superior  animals. 

In  the  previous  system,  'the  procedure  which  nature  em- 
ployed to  isolate  on  different  points  of  the  organ  the  light 
emanating  from  different  points,  consists  in  excluding  the 
rays  which  would  prevent  the  effect  from  being  produced. 
It  obtains  the  same  result  with  much  more  precision  still,  and 
especially  with  a  greater  intensity  of  light,  by  causing  to  meet 
anew  upon  one  point  the  divergent  rays  which  emanate  from 
another  point.'     The  bodies  which  have  thus  the  power  to 


THE   FACTS.  67 

focus  the  light  are  transparent  and  refracting  media :  the 
most  perfect  form  is  that  of  a  lens.  Such  is  the  principle  of 
lenticular  eyes,  or  those  with  crystalline  humour,  of  which  the 
most  complete  model  is  the  human  eye. 

The  eye  is  an  organ  so  well  known  that  it  is  needless  to 
insist  on  the  details  of  its  structure.  Let  us  merely  recall 
that  this  apparatus  is  absolutely  like  the  artificial  apparatus 
called  the  camera  obscura.  Given  a  box  closed  on  all  sides, 
and  only  affording  entrance  to  the  light  by  a  small  opening, 
if  we  place  behind  this  opening  in  the  interior  of  the  box  a 
converging  lens,  the  luminous  rays  proceeding  from  any 
object,  and  forced  to  pass  through  this  lens,  will  be  found 
to  meet  at  the  end  of  the  box  on  the  surface  opposite  the 
opening,  and  will  there  reproduce  the  image  of  the  external 
object,  but  turned  upside  down.  This  apparatus  has  become 
popular  since  the  discovery  of  photography.  We  know  that 
the  eye  is  an  apparatus  of  this  kind :  it  is  a  camera,  and  all 
the  conditions  of  the  phenomena  we  have  just  described  are 
found  there  reali^.ed  as  far  as  necessary.  Let  us  mention  the 
combined  precautions  which  have  rendered  vision  possible  in 
this  remarkable  apparatus.^ 

It  is  necessary,  first  of  all,  that  the  solid  membrane  which 
constitutes  the  globe  of  the  eye,  and  which  is  called  the 
sclerotic,  should  become  transparent  in  a  point  of  its  surface, 
to  permit  the  luminous  rays  to  traverse  it ;  and  this  trans- 
parent part,  which  is  called  the  cornea,  must  be  found  to 
correspond  exactly  with  the  opening  of  the  orbit  of  the  eye, 
for  if  the  sclerotic  were  opaque  in  the  very  place  where  the 
eye  is  in  connection  with  the  light,  and  transparent  where  it 
is  hidden  in  the  ocular  orbit,  there  would  be  a  contradiction. 
Such  is  the  first  precaution  that  nature  has  taken.  In  the 
second  place,  there  must  be  behind  the  transparent  opening 


1  As  to  the  imperfections  which  have  been  pointed  out  in  the  structure  of 
the  eye,  we  have  replied  above  (p.  45),  with  the  help  of  the  testimony  of  M, 
Helmholtz  himself,  to  the  objection  which  has  been  drawn  from  the  alleged 
defects  of  that  organ. 


68  BOOK  I.   CHAPTER  II. 

which  permits  the  light  to  enter,  convergent  media,  to  unite 
the  luminous  rays  ;  for  if  such  media  did  not  occur,  the  retina 
situated  at  the  back  of  this  apparatus  would  not  receive  the 
images  of  objects,  but  simply  the  diffused  light,  and  it  would 
be  in  vain  that  nature  had  constructed  a  camera.  Simple 
ocular  points,  such  as  one  sees  in  worms  or  inferior  animals, 
would  have  sufficed  for  distinguishing  day  from  night.  And 
thirdly,  there  must  be  found  at  the  extremity  of  this  camera, 
and  opposite  the  entrance,  the  retina,  or  diffusion  of  the 
optic  nerve  —  the  nerve  sensible  to  the  light,  and  which  can 
only  see  on  condition  of  receiving  the  image  of  the  object. 
Suppose  that  the  retina  were  not  placed  in  the  very  axis  of 
the  transparent  cornea  and  of  the  crystalline  humour,  sup- 
pose that  it  were  in  another  part  of  the  eye,  it  would  receive 
nothing  and  consequently  would  see  nothing,  and  the  images, 
projecting  themselves  on  an  insensible  surface,  would  not  be 
perceived.  The  transparent  media  would  then  be  entirely 
useless,  and  it  would  have  been  better  to  dispense  with 
them. 

Thus  an  eye  or  camera  not  having  a  transparent  part  cor- 
responding to  the  opening  of  its  orbit,  convergent  media 
corresponding  to  that  transparent  cornea,  and  a  retina  cor- 
responding to  these  convergent  media,  —  an  eye  in  which 
these  diverse  elements,  opening  of  the  eye,  transparent  cor- 
nea, convergent  medium,  retina,  were  not  all  placed  in  the 
same  axis,  so  that  the  light  could  pass  through  them  in 
succession,  —  such  an  eye  would  imply  a  contradiction. 
,  But  notice  that  this  contradiction  would  only  exist  from 
the  point  of  view  of  final  causes,  and  not  of  efficient  causes.. 
There  would  only  be  contradiction  if  the  eye  is  an  eye,  that 
is,  an  apparatus  destined  to  see  ;  for  if  it  is  only  a  mechanical 
combination,  found  by  chance  to  be  fitted  for  vision,  there  is 
no  contradiction  if  the  conditions  of  vision  are  not  realized. 
Physically  speaking,  one  does  not  see  why  there  should  not 
be  an  eye  in  which  the  retina  did  not  correspond  with  the 
C]'j"stalline  humour,  the  crystalline  humour  with  the  trans- 


THE  FACTS.  69" 

parent  cornea,  the  transparent  cornea  with  the  opening  of  the 
orbit,  and,  in  fine,  Avhv  an  eye  perfectly  formed  should  not  be 
hidden  in  a  closed  orbit.  For,  that  causes  which  do  not  pro- 
pose to  themselves  an  end  should  only  realize  what  is  quite 
conformable  to  that  end,  is  what  does  not  appear  proba- 
ble.i 

To  those  who  admire  the  structure  of  the  eye,  there  has 
been  objected  the  uselessness  of  the  crystalline  humour,  since 
the  blind  operated  on  for  cataract  can  do  without  it.^  Firsts 
that  the  crystalline  is  not  absolutely  necessary  one  easily  com- 
prehends, since  there  are  in  the  eye  three  refracting  media, — 
the  vitreous  humour,  the  aqueous  humour,  and  the  crystalline 
itself.  If  one  of  these  three  media  disappear,  the  others  can 
still,  strictly  speaking,  exercise  their  function,  and  render 
vision  possible.  One  does  not  see  well,  but  still  one  sees^ 
which  is  better  than  absolute  blindness.  Besides,  it  is  for- 
gotten that  after  the  operation  for  cataract  the  crystalline 
becomes  useless  under  the  condition  that  it  is  replaced  by  a 
double  convex  lens,  which  is  nothing  else  than  a  double 
artificial  crystalline.  Reasoning  in  this  manner,  one  might 
just  as  well  say  that  the  legs  are  useless,  since,  strictly  speak- 
ing, one  can  walk  with  crutches.  Indeed,  there  are  cases  in 
which  those  affected  by  cataract  see  without  spectacles ;  the 
oculists  even  advise  to  exercise  the  eye  as  much  as  possible^ 

1  The  objection  will  here  be  brought  against  us  of  the  blind  species,  of  which 
recently  a  considerable  number  has  been  found.  (See  the  Comptes  rendus  de 
I'Ac.  des  Sciences,  session  of  16th  Nov,  1874.)  This  touches  the  question  of 
rudimentary  organs,  which  we  will  examine  farther  on  (chap.  vi.).  Let  u» 
merely  remark  at  present  that  a  rudimentary  organ  is  not  a  cojitradirlonj  organ. 
Besides,  we  do  not  deny  that  there  may  be  some  exceptions;  for  instance,  in 
the  genus  of  the  Nereides.  (See  Miiller,  t.  ii.  p.  301.)  These  perturbations  are 
explained,  according  to  our  own  view,  by  the  inevitable  conflict  of  efficient 
and  final  causes.    (See  under  chap,  vi.) 

2  '  One  may  on  this  subject  indicate  as  a  striking  example  of  this  absurd  dis- 
position, the  puerile  affectation  of  certain  philosophers  to  boast  of  the  pretended 
wisdom  of  nature  in  the  structure  of  the  eye,  particularly  in  that  which  con- 
cerns the  function  of  the  crystalline  humour,  of  which  they  have  gone  the  length 
of  admiring  the  fundamental  uselessness,  as  if  there  could  be  much  wisdom  in 
introducing  so  inopportunely  a  part  which  is  not  necessary  to  the  phenomenon, 
and  which  nevertheless  becomes,  in  certain  cases,  capable  of  preventing  it  alto- 
gether.'—Comte,  Philosophie  positive,  t.  iii.  p.  442,  note- 


TO  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  II. 

in  order  to  attain  this  result.  But  this  result  usually  occurs 
in  the  case  of  myopia,  that  is,  the  case  in  which  the  media  of 
the  eye  are  endued  with  an  excessive  refracting  property.  In 
this  case  the  abolition  of  the  crystalline  may  simply  have  the 
effect  of  restoring  the  eye  to  the  normal  state  of  refraction  ; 
it  is  a  sort  of  accidental  corrective  of  myopia.  Besides,  the 
crystalline  can  also  be  supplied  to  a  certain  extent  in  another 
manner.  Every  one  knows  that  the  pupil  is  contractile,  — 
that  it  contracts  or  dilates  according  to  the  intensity  of  the 
light,  by  an  effort  of  the  will.  Now,  the  contraction  of  the 
pupil  results  in  increasing  the  degree  of  refraction  of  the  lu- 
minous rays ;  for  in  a  camera  one  can  disjDcnse  with  a  con- 
verging lens  behind  the  opening  which  receives  the  pencil  of 
light,  provided  the  opening  be  extremely  small.  In  this  case 
the  rays  can  converge  and  design  the  image  of  the  object  on 
a  screen  appointed  for  that  purpose  without  needing  to  pass 
through  refracting  media.  We  imagine,  then,  that  the  person 
affected  by  cataract  may  acquire  the  habit  of  giving  to  the 
pupil  a  degree  of  contraction  greater  than  in  the  normal  state, 
and  may  thus  in  some  cases  succeed  to  a  certain  extent  in 
dispensing  with  the  crystalline,  and  even  with  spectacles. 
But  nothing  has  been  gained  by  that ;  for  this  contractility 
of  the  pupil  is  itself  one  of  the  most  remarkable  properties, 
which  has  to  be  added  to  all  those  which  we  have  already 
admired  in  the  structure  of  the  eye. 

Yet  again,  the  crystalline  furnishes  us  with  one  of  the  most 
interesting  and  most  striking  examples  of  the  law  of  finality 
—  namely,  the  relation  which  exists  between  the  degree  of  its 
curvature  and  the  density  of  the  media  in  which  the  animal 
is  called  to  live.  '  This  lens,'  says  Miiller,  '  ought  evidently 
to  be  so  much  the  more  dense  and  convex  as  there  is  less 
difference  of  density  between  the  aqueous  humour  and  the 
medium  in  which  the  animal  lives.'  This  law  is  only  evident 
if  we  admit  that  the  crystalline  has  an  end  ;  for  if  it  has  none, 
there  is  no  physical  necessity  that  its  convexity  should  be  in 
inverse  ratio  to  the  difference  of  the  density  of  the  aqueous 


THE   FACTS.  71 

humour  and  the  medium.  Because  an  animal  lives  in  the  air 
or  in  the  water,  it  does  not  at  all  follow  physically  that  the 
crystalline  ought  to  be  denser  and  more  convex ;  for  I  do  not 
believe  that  it  could  be  said  that  the  moist  media,  acting 
mechanically  on  the  crj^stalline,  determine  by  their  pressure 
the  precise  degree  of  curvature  which  in  this  state  of  things 
is  necessary  for  vision.  There  is,  therefore,  here  only  a 
relation  of  foresight  and  not  of  necessity.  Now  the  law 
mentioned  by  Miiller  is  verified  by  this  fact :  '  In  the  case  of 
fishes,  where  the  difference  of  density  between  the  aqueous 
humour  and  the  water  in  which  they  swim  is  very  slight,  the 
crystalline  is  spherical,  and  the  cornea  flat ;  with  animals  that 
live  in  the  air,  the  cornea  is  more  convex,  and  the  crystalline 
more  depressed.' 

.  While  playing  the  part  of  a  converging  lens,  it  has  also 
another  action,  recently  discovered,  and  which  again  exhibits 
the  marvellous  industry  of  nature.  '  If  we  were  limited  to 
consider  the  eye  as  a  camera,  all  whose  parts  were  invariable, 
and  invariably  situated  at  the  same  distance  from  an  external 
object,  it  is  clear  that  there  would  only  be  one  particular  dis- 
tance at  wliich  an  object  would  be  perfectly  visible.  But 
every  one  knows  from  experience  that  sight  is  far  from  being 
so  imperfect.  If  the  eye  rest  on  an  object  placed  at  fifteen 
centimetres  distance,  —  for  instance,  on  a  very  brilliant  metal- 
lic thread,  —  it  sees  it  perfectly  defined,  quite  as  well  as  if  it 
were  at  the  distance  of  thirty  centimetres.  Let  us  put  the 
same  thread  at  the  distance  of  forty,  fifty  centimetres,  or  even 
much  farther,  the  clearness  continues  perfect  for  good  eyes 
The  eye  possesses,  therefore,  a  faculty  of  accommodation., 
and,  moreover,  each  of  us  is  conscious  of  it.  If  we  place  two 
luminous  points  at  very  different  distances  from  the  eye,  we 
feel  the  effort  exerted  in  order  to  see  successively  that  which 
is  nearer  and  that  which  is  more  distant.'  ^ 

This   faculty  of  accommodation   in   the    eye   has   greatly 

1  Physique,  by  MM.  Boutau  and  D'Almeida,  vol.  ii.  p.  415,  2d  edition.      See 
the  same  work,  Book  VI.  chap,  vi.,  for  the  following  facts. 


72  BOOK  I.   CHAPTER  U. 

embarrassed  physiologists  and  physicists,  and  various  explana- 
tions of  it  have  been  proposed.  It  appears  to  be  now  proved 
that  this  property  resides  in  the  crystalline.  Very  exact 
experiments  have  shown  that  the  crystalline  is  capable  of 
varying  the  curvature  of  the  surfaces  which  bound  it.  The 
will,  acting  on  it  by  means  not  yet  well  known,  can  cause  it 
to  swell,  and  consequently  to  vary  the  degrees  of  convexity 
which  determine  the  refraction  of  the  luminous  ray.  These 
changes  of  curvature  have  been  measured  nearly  to  the 
hundredth  of  a  millimetre,  and  they  exactly  correspond  with 
those  which  theor}^  requires  in  order  that  images  at  a  varied 
distance  may  be  depicted  on  the  retina.  These  beautiful 
results  are  again  confirmed  by  the  case  of  those  affected  with 
cataract,  with  whom  the  perception  of  varied  distance  is  very 
imperfect.^ 

I  shall  not  insist  on  another  remarkable  property  of  the  eye, 
not  yet  well  explained,  but  which  is  indubitable  —  namely, 
what  is  called  the  achromatism  of  the  eye.  This  property 
consists  in  correcting  the  defect  of  lenses,  called  in  optics  the 
aberration  of  refrangibility.  When  two  very  bright  colours 
are  beside  each  other,  there  is  drawn  between  them  a  line, 
more  or  less  long,  coloured  with  the  hues  of  the  rainbow ;  at 
least,  this  is  what  happens  to  images  perceived  by  means  of 
these  lenses.  Newton  believed  it  impossible  to  remedy  this 
defect  of  our  optical  instruments.  Yet  this  has  been  attained 
to  a  certain  extent.  Lenses  free  from  this  defect  are  what  are 
called  achromatic  lenses.  But  human  art  is  unable  to  obtain 
a  perfect  achromatism.  Now  the  human  eye  is  achromatic : 
what  proves  it  is  that,  looking  at  a  white  object  on  a  black 
ground,  we  perceive  no  intermediary  line.  Perhaps  this 
achromatism  is  not  itself  perfect,  but  in  every  case  it  is  quite 
sufficient  for  practical  use.  Let  us  add,  moreover,  that  this 
condition  has  not  exactly  the  same  value  as  the  preceding 

1  It  is  not  altogether  gone,  for,  as  I  have  said  just  now,  we  obtain  hj'  the  con- 
traction or  dilatation  of  the  pupil  a  result  analogous  to  that  which  results  from 
the  curvature  of  the  crystalline  ;  but  that  result  is  very  insufficient. 


THE  FACTS.  78 

conditions ;  for  after  all,  if  the  eye  were  not  achromatic,  it 
would  merely  follow  that  it  would  see  objects  otherwise  than 
it  sees  them,  but  yet  it  may  be  denied  that  this  property 
renders  easier  the  discernment  of  objects. 

Again,  let  us  instance  the  part  which  the  external  organs 
play  in  the  act  of  vision.  Without  forming  part  of  the  eye, 
they  are  in  some  sort  its  protectors  —  tutamina  oculi,  as  they 
are  called ;  for  example,  the  eyelids  and  eyelashes.  It  has 
long  been  remarked  that  these  organs  serve  to  prevent  cer- 
tain hurtful  matters  from  entering  the  eye  ;  but  they  were  far 
from  being  suspected  of  playing  another  part,  important  in  a 
very  different  way  —  namely,  the  property  of  partly  arresting 
what  are  called  the  ultraviolet  rays,  that  is  to  say,  the  luminous 
rays  which  are  beyond  the  violet  rays  in  the  solar  spectrum, 
—  rays  which  certainly  exist,  since  they  exercise  a  chemical 
action  on  a  photographic  plate.  Now  it  appears  proved  that 
these  rays  act  in  a  very  injurious  manner  on  the  retina.  In 
the  second  place,  M.  Janssen  has  proved  by  numerous  and 
precise  experiments  that  these  protecting  media  have  the 
power  of  arresting  almost  the  whole  of  the  obscure  radiating 
heat  which  always  accompanies  the  light  in  considerable  pro- 
portion. Now  these  caloric  rays  might  alter  the  very  delicate 
tissue  of  the  retina,  and  thus,  thanks  to  those  organs  which 
appear  accessory,  the  only  radiations  which  are  transmitted  to 
the  nerve  are  those  which  are  capable  of  producing  vision 
without  altering  the  organ.  These  last  facts  suffice  to  show 
what  combinations  have  been  needed  to  render  the  eye  fit 
for  the  eminent  function  it  fulfils  in  the  organism. 

We  have  naturallv  insisted  on  the  orsran  of  sio-ht,  as  beinc: 
of  all  others  that  which  presents  the  greatest  number  of 
adaptations,  and  in  the  most  notable  conditions.  We  can, 
however,  make  analogous  observations  on  the  organ  of  hear- 
ing, although  it  presents  circumstances  less  favourable  and 
less  salient. 

Now,  it  required  a  special  apparatus  to  secure  the  repro- 
duction of  images,  and  to  pass  from  diffuse  to  distinct  vision  ; 


f4  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  II. 

but  for  hearing,  the  point  is  merely  to  have  apparatus  con 
ducting  sound;  and  as  every  kind  of  matter  conducts  the 
waves  of  sound,  hearing  is  already  possible,  whatever  be  the 
structure  of  the  auditory  organ.  However,  there  are  in  this 
case  also  precautions  to  be  taken,  and  the  most  important 
relate  to  the  difference  of  the  media  in  which  the  animal 
lives.     Let  us  hear  Miiller  again  on  this  point : 

'  With  the  animals  which  live  in  the  air,  the  sound-waves 
of  the  air  reach  first  the  solid  parts  of  the  animal  and  the 
auditory  organ,  and  thence  they  jpass  to  the  lymph  of  the 
labyrinth.  The  power  of  hearing  of  an  animal  which  lives 
and  hears  in  the  air  ought,  therefore,  to  depend  on  the  degree 
in  which  the  solid  parts  of  its  auditory  organ  are  fitted  to 
receive  aerial  waves,  on  the  diminution  which  the  movements 
of  vibrating  molecules  experience  at  the  moment  when  the 
vibrations  pass  from  the  air  into  the  external  parts  of  the 
auditory  organ,  and  on  the  degree  of  fitness  of  the  labyrin- 
thine lymph  to  receive  vibrations  from  the  external  parts  of 
the  auditory  organ.  The  lohole  external  fart  of  the  organ  of 
hearing  is  calculated  ivith  a  vieiv  to  render  easier  the  vibrations 
of  the  air  on  solid  parts,  a  transmission  ivhich  in  itself  presents 
difficulties.^ 

'With  the  animals  that  live  and  hear  in  the  water,  the 
problem  is  quite  different.  The  medium  which  transmits  the 
vibrations  of  sound  is  the  water ;  it  brings  them  to  the  solid 
parts  of  the  unimaFs  body,  whence  they  come  once  again  into 
water,  into  the  lymph  of  the  labyrinth.  Here  the  acuteness 
of  hearing  depends  on  the  degree  of  aptitude  possessed  by  the 
solid  parts  of  the  auditory  organ,  which  the  waves  of  sound 
require,  in  the  first  place,  to  traverse  to  receive  waves  from 
the  ambient  water,  in  order  to  transmit  them  anew  to  the 
water,  and  on  the  diminution  which  the  vibrating  molecules 
undergo  during  this  passage.  We  will  perceive  here  again  that 
the  whole  external  part  of  the  auditory  organ  is  calculated  to  the 
end  of  facilitating  this  transmission^'  ^ 

1  Miiller,  French  translation,  vol.  ii.  p.  401. 


THE  FACTS.  75 

It  is  evident  that  the  conditions  of  liearing  aie  perfectly 
appropriate  to  the  two  media  in  which  the  animal  behoves  to 
live.  Let  it  be  explained,  then,  how  a  purely  physical  cause, 
which  had  had  no  regard  to  the  nature  of  the  media,  should 
have  coincided  so  justly  with  the  nature  of  the  organ ;  how, 
for  example,  it  does  not  happen  that  the  two  systems  are 
interchanged,  and  how  they  do  not  meet  by  chance,  whether 
in  the  air  or  in  the  water ;  how,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
system  suitable  for  the  air  is  only  met  with  in  the  air, 
and  reciprocally.  But,  it  will  be  said,  animals  with  which 
this  mistake  had  occurred,  being  thereby  deprived  of  that 
means  of  preservation  or  of  defence,  would  necessarily  perish ; 
and  this  is  why  we  see  no  trace  of  them.  But  I  do  not  at 
all  see  why  animals  should  perish  because  deprived  of  hear- 
ing, for  great  numbers  of  them  are  in  this  condition.  Besides, 
this  disadvantage  might  be  compensated  by  other  means  of 
defence  and  preservation.  And  consequently  there  is  still 
room  to  ask  why  the  structure  of  the  ear  is  found  so  perfectly 
fitted  for  its  use.  A  cause  entirely  physical  and  mechanical 
gives  no  account  of  so  exact  a  coincidence. 

I  fear  I  would  fatigue  the  reader  were  I  to  review  with 
such  detail  all  parts  of  the  organism :  there  are  few  of  them 
regarding  which  one  could  not  make  observations  of  the  same 
kind.  I  shall  only  mention  the  most  striking  and  decisive 
facts. 

1.  The  shape  of  the  teeth,  so  apt  for  cutting,  tearing,  and 
grinding,  and  which  are  so  appropriate  to  the  diet  of  the 
animal  that  Cuvier  thought  them  one  of  the  most  decisive 
and  characteristic  signs  of  the  animal ;  the  mode  of  their 
insertion  and  the  solidity  of  their  base,  so  agreeable  to  the 
laws  of  mechanics,  and  so  well  proportioned  to  their  use ; 
the  protecting  enamel  which  covers  them,  and  which  takes 
the  place  of  the  membrane  called  periosteum,  which  covers  the 
other  bones,  but  which  would  not  have  been  here  fit  for 
the  purpose  of  the  teeth,  because  of  its  sensitiveness  and 
delicacy. 


76  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  II. 

2.  The  epiglottis,  which  serves  in  some  sort  as  a  door  to 
the  trachea,  which  shuts  like  a  kind  of  bridge  when  food 
enters  the  oesophagus,  and  opens  of  itself  as  if  by  a  spring 
when  the  food  has  passed,  in  order  that  the  respiratory  func- 
tion be  not  interrupted.  Magendie  thought  that  the  removal 
of  the  epiglottis  did  not  hinder  the  function  of  deglutition. 
M.  Longet  has  qualified  this  assertion.  He  observed  after 
the  excision  of  the  epiglottis  in  dogs,  that  if  solid  food  con- 
tinues to  pass  easily,  it  is  not  the  same  with  liquids,  the  swal- 
lowing of  which  is  followed  by  a  convulsive  cough.  He  states 
a  great  number  of  pathological  facts  in  support  of  this  asser- 
tion, and  concludes  that  they  were  mistaken  who  regarded 
the  epiglottis  as  not  necessary  to  the  integrity  of  deglutition. 
*  That  organ  serves,'  he  says, '  to  direct  the  drops  of  liquid  into 
the  two  channels  of  the  larynx,  which  after  deglutition  flow 
along  the  inclined  plane  from  the  base  of  the  tongue,  and  to 
prevent  their  falling  into  the  subglottic  vestibule.'  ^ 

3.  The  circular  and  longitudinal  fibres  of  the  oesophagus, 
which,  by  their  peristaltic  motion,  determine  the  descent  of  the 
food,  an  effect  which  gravity  itself  would  not  suffice  to  pro- 
duce, especially  in  the  case  of  other  animals  than  man  :  thanks 
to  this  mechanical  combination,  oesophagic  deglutition  is  pos- 
sible, despite  the  horizontal  situation  of  the  oesophagus.^ 

4.  The  valves  of  the  veins  and  of  the  chyle-bearing  vessels, 
all  opening  like  sluices  towards  the  heart,  allow  the  chyle  or 
the  blood  to  ascend  when  pressed  by  the  contractions  of  these 
vessels,  but  by  closing  after  they  have  passed  prevent  reflux, 

1  Longet,  Traits de  physiologie  (2d  edition),  t.  i.  2d  part,  'Deglutition.' 
-  Not  only  the  structure  of  the  organism,  but  even  the  history  of  the  functions 
has  its  adaptations  and  skill,  which  imply  a  certain  finality.  '  As  Berzelius 
remarks,  nature  has  taken  care  to  alternate  the  reactions  in  the  successive  parts 
of  the  digestive  tube,  in  order  thus  to  bring  about  at  the  right  time  the  jiroduc- 
tion  of  the  different  juices  necessary  for  digestion.  The  reaction  is  alkaline  in 
the  mouth,  and  the  food,  on  being  impregnated  with  saliva,  carries  the  same 
reaction  into  the  stomach,  where  it  thus  evokes  the  secretion  of  the  gastric  juice. 
There  the  food  becomes  acid  under  the  influence  of  the  same  gastric  juice  .  .  . 
and  on  reaching  the  end  of  the  duodenum,  it  immediately  occasions  a  consider- 
able secretion  of  bile,  which  once  more  changes  its  reaction,  and  makes  it  become 
alkaline.'  —  CI.  Bernard,  Le<;ons  sur  les  propri^t^s  des  tissits  vivants,  p.  235. 


THE   FACTS.  77 

which  would  otherwise  necessarily  take  place  in  virtue  of  the 
law  of  gravitation.  We  know  it  was  the  sight  of  these  valves 
which  led  Harvey  to  the  discovery  of  the  circulation  of  the 
blood.  Besides,  these  valves  have  the  function  of  dividing 
into  spaces  the  column  of  blood,  that  it  may  not  press  with 
all  its  weight  on  the  lower  parts. 

5.  The  structure  of  the  heart,  so  admirably  adapted  to  the 
great  function  it  fulfils  in  the  organism :  its  division  into  two 
great  cavities,  the  right  and  the  left,  without  communication 
with  each  other,  as  the  blood  must  not  pass  from  the  one  to 
the  other;  the  subdivision  of  these  two  cavities  into  two 
others,  auricles  and  ventricles,  whose  motions  alternately 
correspond  —  the  contraction  of  the  auricles  corresponding  to 
the  dilatation  of  the  ventricles,  and  reciprocally;  the  con- 
centric and  radiating  fibres  of  which  the  membranes  of  the 
heart  are  composed,  fibres  whose  action,  indeed,  is  not  per- 
fectly known,  but  which  contribute  without  any  doubt  to  the 
double  motion  of  systole  and  diastole^  which  is  the  principal 
motive  power  of  the  circulation ;  the  tricuspid  valve,  which 
prevents  the  blood  from  returning  from  the  right  ventricle 
into  the  right  auricle,  and  the  sigmoid  valves,  which  prevent 
it  from  returning  from  the  pulmonary  artery  into  the  same 
ventricle ;  and  in  like  manner,  for  the  other  side,  the  mitral 
valve,  which  prevents  the  blood  from  returning  from  the  left 
ventricle  to  the  left  auricle  ;  and  the  sigmoid  valves,  which 
permit  it  to  enter  the  aorta  without  coming  back. 

To  explain  without  a  final  cause  a  mechanism  so  compli- 
cated, and  at  the  same  time  so  simple,  —  simple  in  principle, 
complicated  by  the  number  of  parts  in  operation,  —  one  must 
suppose  that  a  physical  cause,  acting  according  to  given 
laws,  has  hit  upon,  without  having  sought,  the  system  of  all 
others  the  fittest  to  permit  the  circulation  of  the  blood,  while 
other  causes,  equally  blind,  determine  the  production  of  the 
blood,  and  make  it  flow,  in  virtue  of  other  laws,  in  channels 
so  well  placed ;  and  then  that  this  blood,  flowing  in  these 
channels,  was  again  found,  from  other  circumstances,  and  by 


78  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  II. 

an  unforeseen  coincidence,  useful  and  indispensable  for  the 
preservation  of  the  living  being.  How  is  it  conceivable  that 
so  many  diverse  causes,  acting  without  an  end,  should 
coincide  so  well  in  their  common  action  with  that  end? 
Remember  we  have  the  right  to  say  here,  as  men  of  science 
do  in  similar  circumstances,  that  all  takes  place  as  if  the 
cause  of  these  phenomena  had  foreseen  the  effect  which  they 
behoved  to  produce :  would  it  not  be  strange  that  a  blind 
cause  should  act  precisely  in  the  same  manner  as  one  not 
blind  would  do  ?  Consequently,  until  it  be  proved  that  such 
facts  have  not  been  foreseen,  the  presumption  is  that  they 
have  been.  It  lies  with  those  that  deny  it  to  furnish  the 
contrary  proof :  Neganti  incumhit  prohatio. 

6.  The  structure  of  the  respiratory  apparatus,  where  there 
meet,  on  the  one  hand,  the  vessels  which  bring  the  blood,  and^ 
on  the  other,  the  vessels  which  bring  the  air,  each  pulmonary 
cell  receiving  both  at  once ;  the  arrangement  of  the  ribs,  of 
the  sternum,  of  the  collar  bones,  and  the  diaphragm,  suscep- 
tible of  a  double  motion,  corresponding  to  inspiration  and 
expiration ;  the  complicated  network  of  nerves  and  muscles 
which  serve  to  determine  that  double  motion.  Add  to  this, 
the  admirable  adaptation  of  the  respiratory  system  to  the 
medium  in  which  the  animal  is  called  to  live :  for  the  air,  the 
pulmonary  apparatus ;  for  the  water,  the  apparatus  of  gills. 
It  is  quite  certain  that  an  animal  which  lives  in  the  water 
could  only  breathe  air  on  condition  of  having  its  head  con- 
stantly out  of  the  water,  which  would  be  contrary  to  its 
preservation,  supposing  it  could  only  find  its  food  in  the 
water  itself.  There  would  thus  be  an  incompatibility  between 
its  nourishment  and  respiration.  Yet  this  system  is  met  with 
in  some  animals  —  whales,  for  instance — which  only  need  to 
breathe  at  certain  intervals.  But  the  simplest  plan  was  that 
the  animals  should  breathe  in  the  same  element  in  which 
they  are  called  to  live.  This  is  the  problem  which  is  solved 
by  the  second  system,  'a  combination  of  plates,  of  gills,  combs, 
bunches,  cilia,  feathery  excrescences  —  in  a  word,  forms  so 


THE   FACTS.  7^ 

varied,  that  nature  seems  to  have  determined  here  to  solve 
the  problem  of  realizing  all  imaginable  ways  of  augmenting 
the  surface  by  external  projections.'  ^  The  water  passes  be- 
tween these  plates,  and  the  absorption  of  oxygen  takes  place 
by  a  sort  of  endosmose  through  the  membranes  which  cover 
the  blood-vessels. 

7.  The  structure  of  the  organs  of  motion, — a  structure 
capable,  indeed,  of  the  most  varied  forms,  but  of  which  '  th& 
essence  consists,'  according  to  Miiller,  'in  almost  all  animals,. 
and  despite  the  diversity  of  the  forms  of  displacement  by 
swimming,  creeping,  flying,  or  walking,  in  this,  that  certain 
parts  of  their  bodies  describe  arcs,  whose  branches  extend 
after  being  stayed  on  a  fixed  point.  Sometimes  these  arcs 
are  produced  by  the  body  itself,  which  is  vermiform,  as  in 
creeping  and  swimming;  sometimes  the  extension  and  flexion 
result  from  the  approach  and  removal  of  the  two  sides  of  an 
angle,  in  which  case  one  of  the  two  sides  forms,  by  means  of 
the  resistance  which  the  solid  or  liquid  bodies  oppose  to  it, 
the  fixed  point  starting  from  which  the  other  parts  are  carried 
forward  by  the  opening  of  the  angle.  To  this  are  reducible 
the  motions  in  the  water,  the  air,  or  on  the  earth,  of  animals 
provided  with  members,  fins,  wings,  or  flaps.  For  the  air 
and  water  also  oppose  resistance  to  bodies  that  seek  to  dis- 
place them,  and  the  force  which  tends  to  resist  them  reacts- 
in  proportion  to  that  obstacle  on  the  body  of  the  animal  tO' 
which  it  imparts  an  impulse  in  a  definite  direction.'  ^  Thus, 
whatever  be  the  species  of  motion  which  animals  have  ta 
execute,  they  must  always  obey  the  laws  of  mechanics  ;  and 
consequently  the  combination  of  forces  by  which  their  organs 
are  impelled,  and  the  form  of  these  organs,  behove  to  be  in 
accordance  with  the  kind  of  motions  they  accomplish,  which, 
in  its  turn,  is  adapted  in  a  great  measure  to  the  medium 
which  they  inhabit  and  to  the  species  of  sustenance  which 
they  use.     As  to  the  exceptions  to  this  law  which  may  have 

1  Miiller,  t.  i.  1.  it.  §  i.  chap.  ii. 

2  Miiller,  t.  ii.  1.  iv.  §  ii.  chap.  iii.  p.  105,  in^French  translation. 


so  '  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  II. 

been  adduced,  we  have  seen  that  they  were  reducible  to  the 
rule.i 

8.  The  apparatus  of  the  voice  in  man.  '  In  studying  the 
voice  of  man,'  says  Miiller,  '  one  is  struck  with  the  infinite 
art  with  which  the  organ  that  produces  it  is  constructed.  No 
instrument  of  music  is  quite  comparable  to  this  ;  for  organs 
and  pianos,  despite  all  their  resources,  are  imperfect  in  other 
respects.  Some  of  these  instruments,  like  mouth-pipes,  do 
not  permit  us  to  pass  from  piano  to  forte ;  in  others,  as  in  all 
those  which  are  played  by  percussion,  there  are  no  means  of 
maintaining  the  sound.  The  organ  has  two  registers  —  that 
of  the  mouth-pipes,  and  that  of  the  reed-pipes ;  in  this  point 
of  view  resembling  the  human  voice,  with  its  chest  register 
and  falsetto.  But  none  of  these  instruments  combines  all 
advantages  like  the  human  voice.  The  vocal  organ  has,  above 
them  all,  the  advantage  of  being  able  to  give  all  the  sounds 
of  the  musical  scale,  and  all  their  shades,  with  a  single  mouth- 
pipe,  while  the  most  perfect  of  reed-instruments  requires  a 
separate  pipe  for  each  sound.'  ^ 

In  fine,  to  these  precious  advantages  of  the  vocal  organ  of 
man,  we  must  add  another  much  more  considerable  still,  — 
the  faculty  of  articulation,  so  marvellously  adapted  to  the 
expression  of  thought  that  it  has  been  said  that  thought  is 
impossible  without  speech,  —  a  union,  moreover,  which  is  not 
only  philosophical  but  physiological,  paralysis  of  the  brain 
having,  as  a  consequence,  the  suppression  or  embarrassment 
of  speech. 

9.  The  sexual  organs,  on  which  we  need  not  insist  after 
the  exposition  of  this  point  given  in  the  previous  chapter.^ 

10.  Finally,  the  admirable  harmony  of  the  whole  system, 
and  the  correlation  of  the  parts,  a  fact  for  which  we  also 
refer  to  considerations  already  stated.* 

1  See  above,  p.  44. 

2  Miiller,  t.  ii.  1.  iii.  §  iv.  chap.  ii.  p.  197.  ^  gee  p.  52. 

*  See  also  the  previous  chapter,  p.  49.  Similar  examples  may  be  derived 
from  botanj^  (see,  for  instance,  Ch.  Bonnet,  De  V usage  des  feuilles,  Leyden  1734, 
And  Ciivier,  article  '  Bonnet '  in  the  Biographie  Universelle).    '  It  seems,'  says  the 


THE  FACTS.  SI 

II.   The  Instincts. 

Another  system  of  facts,  on  which  is  founded  the  theory 
of  finality,  is  instinct  in  animals,  as  well  as  the  different 
species  of  instincts.  This  kind  of  facts  it  is  so  much  the  more 
important  for  us  to  establish,  that  the  principal  presumption 
on  which  we  shall  have  to  depend,  in  order  to  establish  the 
finality  of  the  organism,  will  be  the  analogy  of  function  with 
instinct.  This  is  not  the  place  to  unfold  a  theory  of  instinct ; 
■we  shall  content  ourselves  with  borrowing  from  the  naturalists 
what  can  be  most  certainly  or  most  probably  known,  whether 
of  the  nature  of  that  force  or  of  its  different  species. 

'  The  character  which,  above  all,  distinguishes  instinctive 
actions,'  says  iNIilue-Edwards, '  from  those  which  may  be  called 
intelligent  or  rational,  is  that  they  are  not  the  result  of  imita- 
tion and  experience ;  that  they  are  always  executed  in  the 
same  manner,  and,  to  all  ai3pearance,  without  being  preceded 
by  the  foresight  either  of  their  result  or  of  their  utility. 
Reason  supposes  a  judgment  and  a  choice  ;  instinct,  on  the 
contrary,  is  a  blind  impulse  which  naturally  impels  the  animal 
to  act  in  a  determinate  manner :  its  effects  may  sometimes  he 
modified  hy  experience,  but  they  never  dejjend  on  it  J  ^ 

Indeed,  if  there  is  a  theory  manifestly  contrary  to  the  facts, 
it  is  that  which  would  explain  instinct  by  the  individual 
experience  of  the  animal.     Let  us  hear  Reaumur : 

'  Hardly  are  all  the  parts  of  the  young  bee  dried,  hardly  are 
its  wings  in  a  state  to  be  moved,  when  it  knows  all  it  will 
have  to  do  during  the  rest  of  its  life.  Let  us  not  be  astonished 
that  it  is  so  soon  so  well  instructed :  it  has  been  so  by  Him 
who  formed  it.  It  seems  to  know  that  it  is  born  for  society. 
Like  the  others,  it  leaves  the  common  habitation,  and  goes, 
like  them,  in  search  of  flowers.     It  goes  to  them  alone,  and  is 


latter, '  that  the  plant  acts  for  its  preservation  with  sensibility  and  discernment 
The  roots  turn,  are  prolonged  to  seek  better  nourishment;  the  leaves  turn  aside 
when  moisture  is  presented  to  them  in  a  different  direction  to  that  in  which 
they  ordinarily  receive  it;  the  branches  rise  or  bend  to  find  more  abundant  or 
purer  air;  all  the  parts  of  the  plant  extend  towards  the  light,'  etc. 
1  Milne-Edwards,  Zoologie,  §  319,  p.  228. 


82  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  II. 

not  embarrassed  to  find  its  way  back  to  the  hive,  even  when 
it  seeks  to  return  to  it  for  the  first  time.  If,  then,  it  goes  to 
draw  honey  from  the  heart  of  open  flowers,  it  is  less  to  feed 
itself  than  to  commence  to  work  for  the  common  weal ;  for, 
from  its  first  journey,  it  sometimes  makes  a  collection  of  bees- 
wax. M.  Maraldi  assures  us  that  he  has  seen  bees  return  to 
the  hive  loaded  with  two  large  balls  of  this  substance  the 
same  day  they  were  born.'^ 

The  same  author  says  again,  regarding  wasps :  '  I  have  seen 
these  flies,  from  the  very  day  they  were  transformed,  going 
to  the  country,  and  bringing  food  back  from  it,  which  they 
divided  among  the  grubs.' 

Take  the  testimony  of  another  naturalist :  ^ 

'  How  does  the  moth  act  on  quitting  its  egg  quite  naked  ? 
Hardly  is  it  born  when  it  feels  at  once  the  inconvenience  of 
its  nakedness,  and  an  internal  sensation  excites  it  to  industry 
to  clothe  itself.  It  makes  itself  a  coat,  and  when  it  becomes 
too  small,  it  has  the  art  of  cutting  it  above  and  below,  and 
enlarging  it  by  adding  two  pieces.  The  moth's  mother  took 
the  precaution  to  deposit  this  egg  in  a  place  where  the  newly- 
born  inoth  could  find  stuff  from  which  to  make  a  coat  and 
derive  its  food.  .  .  .  The  spider  and  the  ant-eater  have  not 
yet  seen,  much  less  tasted,  the  insects  which  have  to  serve 
for  their  food,  when  the}^  already  hasten  to  lay  snares  for  them, 
by  weaving  webs  and  digging  pits.  .  .  .  How  could  a  worm, 
only  a  few  days  in  existence,  and  which  from  the  moment  of 
its  birth  has  been  buried  in  some  subterranean  cavern,  have 
invented  such  an  industry  (that  of  spinning  cocoons),  or  how 
could  it  have  acquired  it  by  instruction  or  example  ?  The 
same  is  the  case  with  animals  the  incubation  of  which  is 
effected  in  the  sand  by  the  rays  of  the  sun.  Hardly  are  they 
hatched,  when  they  go  without  a  leader  and  cast  themselves 
into  the  waters.  .  .  .  The  celebrated  Swammerdam  made 
this  experiment  on  the  water-snail,  which  he  took  quite  formed 

1  Reaumur,  Hist,  des  insectes,  t.  v.  mem.  xi. 

2  Reimar,  Instincts  des  animaux,  t.  i.  §  54  sqq. 


THE  FACTS.  83 

from  the  matrix.  Hardly  was  this  little  animal  thrown  into 
the  water,  when  it  began  to  swim  and  to  move  in  all  directions, 
and  to  make  use  of  all  its  organs  as  well  as  its  mother.  It 
showed  quite  as  much  dexterity  as  she,  alike  in  withdrawing 
into  its  shell  in  order  to  go  to  the  bottom,  or  in  coming  out 
of  it  in  order  to  ascend  to  the  surface  of  the  water.' 

These  testimonies  and  experiments  decidedly  attest  that 
the  instincts  are  innate  capacities,  and,  consequently,  that 
nature  receives  from  nature  either  a  hidden  force  or  an 
unknown  mechanism,  which  spontaneously,  without  imita- 
tion, habit,  or  experience,  accomplishes  a  series  of  acts 
adapted  to  the  interests  of  the  animal.  Instinct  is  there- 
fore an  art,  but  every  art  is  a  system  and  chain  of  acts 
adapted  to  a  determinate  future  effect.  The  distinctive 
character  of  finality  is  therefore  found  here  in  an  eminent 
degree. 

Let  us  proceed  to  the  analysis  and  enumeration  of  the 
principal  instincts.  We  may  divide  them  into  three  classes : 
1st,  Those  which  relate  to  the  preservation  of  the  individual ; 
2d,  Those  which  relate  to  the  preservation  of  the  species ; 
3d,  Those  which  refer  to  the  mutual  relations  of  animals. 
In  other  words,  individual  instincts,  domestic  instincts,  social 
instincts.  Such  are  the  three  chief  classes  to  which  all 
instincts  may  be  reduced.^ 

Instincts  7'elating  to  the  preservation  of  the  individual. 

1.  Inclinations  to  feed  on  certain  definite  substances. 
'  Smell  and  taste  are  the  instruments  which  direct  them  in 
their  choice  ;  but  we  can  only  attribute  to  a  particular  instinct 
the  cause  which  determines  them  only  to  eat  substances 
which  act  on  their  senses  in  this  or  that  manner.  And  what 
is  remarkable,  it  sometimes  happens  that  this  instinct  changes 
its  direction  all  at  once,  when  the  animal  attains  a  certain 
period  of  its  development,  and  causes  it  to  abandon  its 
original  diet.     For  example,  certain  insects,  carnivorous  in 

1  Milne-Edwards,  Zoologie,  §  320,  p.  229.  See  the  same  work  for  the  facta 
which  follow. 


84  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  II. 

their  state  of  larvse,  become  herbivorous  in  the  perfect  state, 
and  reciprocally.' 

It  will  be  observed  regarding  this  first  species  of  instincts^ 
that  even  if  they  could  be  explained  by  smell  (each  species 
being  thus  guided  by  the  sensations  which  please  it),  we 
would  still  have  to  understand  how  the  smell  is  found  agreeing 
with  the  interest  of  the  animal,  and  how  it  does  not  incline 
to  injurious  and  deleterious  substances ;  for  there  is  no  neces- 
sary relation  between  the  pleasure  of  an  external  sense  and 
the  needs  of  the  internal  organization.  This  exact  adapta- 
tion appears,  therefore,  to  be  the  result  of  a  pre-established 
harmony. 

2.  Means  employed  by  carnivorous  animals  to  secure  their 
prey.     Some  of  the  best-known  examples  are  as  follows :  — 

'  The  ant-eater  moves  slowly,  and  with  difficulty.  More- 
over, its  instinct  inclines  it  to  dig  in  fine  sand  a  little  pit  in 
the  shape  of  a  funnel,  then  to  hide  at  the  bottom  of  this  trap, 
and  to  wait  patiently  till  an  insect  falls  over  the  little  pre- 
cipice it  has  thus  made  ;  and  if  its  victim  seek  to  escape  or 
stop  in  its  fall,  it  stuns  it  and  rolls  it  to  the  bottom  of  the 
hole,  throwing  over  it,  by  means  of  its  head  and  its  mandibles, 
a  quantity  of  sand.'  '  Certain  spiders  prepare  snares  still 
more  singular.  .  .  .  The  arrangement  of  the  web  varies  accord- 
ing to  the  species,  and  sometimes  presents  no  regularity;  but 
at  other  times  it  is  of  the  utmost  elegance,  and  one  is  aston- 
ished to  see  such  little  creatures  construct  with  such  perfec- 
tion so  extensive  a  web  as  that  of  the  spider  of  our  gardens. 
There  are  spiders  that  make  use  of  their  web  to  swathe  their 
victims.'  '  Certain  fishes  have  the  art  of  throwing  drops  of 
water  on  the  insects  which  are  upon  aquatic  herbs,  in  order 
to  make  them  fall.'  One  might  cite  a  thousand  instances  be- 
sides of  ruses  of  animals,  the  same  in  the  whole  species,  and 
employed  by  the  3'oung  prior  to  any  imitation  and  experience. 

3.  Instinct  of  accumulation. 

'  During  summer,  squirrels  collect  stores  of  filberts,  acorns, 
or  almonds,  and  make  use  of  a  hollow  tree  as  a  magazine. 


THE   FACTS.  85 

They  are  accustomed  to  make  several  deposits  in  several 
different  hiding-places,  and  can  always  find  them  in  winter, 
despite  the  snow.' 

'  Another  rodent  (Siberia),  the  lagomys  pica,  gathers  in 
autumn  the  gi-ass  it  will  need  during  the  long  winter  of  that 
country,  like  our  farmers.  Having  cut  the  strongest  and 
most  succulent  herbs,  it  spreads  them  out  to  dry  in  the  sun. 
It  then  collects  them  in  ricks,  which  it  shelters  from  rain 
and  snow.  It  then  digs  underneath  each  of  these  magazines 
a  subterranean  passage,  terminating  in  its  hole,  and  so 
arranged  as  to  allow  it  from  time  to  time  to  visit  its  store  of 
provisions.' 

4.  Instinct  of  construction.  / 

'  The  silkworm  constructs  a  cocoon  for  its  metamorphosis  j 
the  rabbit,  a  burrow ;  the  beaver,  its  huts.'  '  The  German 
mole  constructs  an  abode  affording  two  exits,  —  the  one 
oblique,  to  cast  out  the  loose  earth  ;  the  other  perpendicular, 
to  go  in  and  out.  These  passages  conduct  to  a  certain  num- 
ber of  circular  excavations,  which  mutually  communicate  by 
horizontal  conduits.  One  is  the  abode  of  the  mole,  the 
others  its  magazines.' 

'  Some  spiders  (niygales)  construct  a  habitation  the  opening 
of  which  they  skilfully  close  by  means  of  a  veritable  door, 
furnished  with  its  hinge.  For  this  end  they  dig,  in  a  clayey 
soil,  a  sort  of  cylindrical  well  of  about  eight  or  ten  centime- 
tres long,  and  plaster  its  walls  with  a  kind  of  very  stiff  mor- 
tar. They  then  make,  with  alternate  laj^ers  of  miry  earth 
and  woven  threads,  a  covering  which  exactl}^  fits  the  orifice 
of  the  hole,  and  which  can  only  open  outwards.  The  hinge 
which  holds  this  door  is  formed  by  a  continuation  of  filament- 
ary layers,  which  extend  from  a  point  of  its  surface  to  the 
walls  of  the  tube  situated  beneath,  and  there  form  a  pad  an- 
swering the  purpose  of  a  frame.  The  external  surface  of  this 
covering  is  wrinkled,  and  scarcely  to  be  distinguished  from 
the  surrounding  earth,  but  the  inner  surface  is  smooth ;  and 
one  may  notice  on  the  side  opposite  the  hinge  a  range  of 


SQ  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  II. 

little  holes,  into  which  the  animal  puts  its  claws  to  keep  it 
shut  when  some  enemy  seeks  to  open  it  by  force.' 

Among  the  instincts  of  construction  one  of  the  most  re- 
markable is  that  of  bees.  '  It  is  a  very  curious  problem  of 
mathematics  to  determine  at  what  precise  angle  the  three 
planes  which  compose  the  bottom  of  a  cell  ought  to  meet,  to 
afford  the  greatest  economy  or  the  least  possible  expense  of 
materials  and  work.  This  problem  belongs  to  the  transcen- 
dental part  of  mathematics,  and  is  one  of  those  called  prob- 
lems of  maxima  and  minima.  It  has  been  solved  by  some 
mathematicians,  particularly  by  the  able  Maclaurin,  by  the 
infinitesimal  calculus,  and  this  solution  is  to  be  found  in  the 
Transactions  of  the  Royal  Society  of  London.  This  scientist 
has  fixed  precisely  the  required  angle,  and  he  found,  after 
the  most  exact  measurement  which  the  subject  admitted  of, 
that  it  is  the  very  angle  at  which  the  three  planes  of  the 
bottom  of  the  cell  in  reality  meet." 

'  Shall  we  ask  here  who  taught  the  bee  the  properties  of 
solids,  and  to  resolve  problems  of  maxima  and  viinima  ?  We 
need  not  say  that  bees  know  none  of  these  things.  They 
work  most  geometrically  without  any  knowledge  of  geometry; 
somewhat  like  a  child,  who,  by  turning  the  handle  of  a  barrel- 
organ,  makes  good  music  without  any  knowledge  of  music'  ^ 

5.  Instinct  of  clothing. 

'In  insects  we  likewise  see  a  great  number  of  curious 
methods  instinctively  employed  for  the  construction  of  a 
dwelling.  Many  caterpillars  can  make  themselves  a  covering 
by  rolling  leaves  together  and  fastening  them  by  means  of 
threads.  In  our  gardens  we  will  constantly  meet  nests  of 
this  sort  on  lilacs,  gooseberry  bushes,  etc. ;  and  of  this  kind 
also  is  formed  that  which  is  found  on  the  oak,  and  which 
belongs  to  the  caterpillar  of  a  little  nocturnal  butterfly,  the 
tortrix  viridissima.     Other  insects  construct  nests  with  frag- 

1  Works  of  Reid  (by  Hamilton,  ii.  546).  A  Swiss  geometrician  has  tried  to 
show  that  this  calculation  was  not  exact,  and  that  the  geometry  of  the  bees 
was  imperfect  Lord  Brougham  resumed  the  problem,  and  has  shown  that 
the  bees  '  were  right.' 


THE   FACTS.  87 

ments  of  leaves,  bits  of  stuff  or  some  other  substance,  which 
they  have  skill  to  adjust  artistically.  Such  is  the  common 
moth,  a  little  grey  silvered  butterfly,  which,  when  in  the 
state  of  caterpillar,  cuts  passages  in  the  thickness  of  woollen 
stuffs,  rapidly  gnawing  them.  With  the  bits  thus  detached 
the  caterpillar  makes  a  pipe,  which  it  continually  lengthens 
at  the  base ;  and,  what  is  singular,  when  it  becomes  too 
large  to  be  at  ease  in  its  dwelling,  it  breaks  this  sort  of 
sheath,  and  enlarges  it  by  adding  a  piece.' 

Instincts  relating  to  the  preservation  of  the  species.^ 

1.  Precautions  for  laying  eggs. 

'  One  of  the  phenomena  fittest  to  give  a  clear  idea  of  what 
ought  to  be  understood  by  instinct  is  that  which  is  presented 
to  us  by  certain  insects  when  they  lay  their  eggs.  Those 
animals  will  never  see  their  progeny,  and  can  have  no  acquired 
notion  of  what  their  eggs  will  become ;  and  yet  they  have  the 
singular  habit  of  placing  beside  each  of  those  eggs  a  supply  of 
elementary  matter  fit  for  nourishing  the  larva  it  will  produce, 
and  that  even  when  that  food  differs  entirely  from  their  own, 
and  the  food  they  deposit  would  thus  be  useless  for  them- 
selves. No  sort  of  reasoning  can  guide  them  in  doing  this, 
for  if  they  had  the  faculty  of  reason,  facts  would  be  awant- 
ing  them  to  arrive  at  such  conclusions,  and  they  must  needs 
act  blindly.' 

Necrophores.  '  When  the  female  is  going  to  lay,  she  always 
takes  care  to  bury  the  body  of  a  mole  or  of  some  other 
small  quadruped,  and  to  place  her  eggs  in  it,  so  that  the 
young  find  themselves  from  their  birth  in  the  midst  of  mat- 
ter best  fitted  for  their  food.' 

Pompiles.  '  At  the  full  age  they  live  on  flowers  ;  but  their 
larvae  are  carnivorous,  and  their  mothers  always  provide  for 
their  nourishment  by  placing  beside  their  eggs,  in  a  nest  pre- 
pared for  this  purpose,  the  bodies  of  some  spiders  or  cater- 
pillars.' 

Xylocopes.     'This  insect  lays  its  eggs  in  pieces  of  wood. 

1  Milne-Edwards,  §  327. 


88  BOOK  I.   CHAPTER   II, 

It  makes  on  the  free  parts  of  pieces  of  wood  —  a  vine  pole,  for 
instance  —  a  vertical  hole,  which  becomes  the  entrance  of  a 
passage,  which  the  xylocopes  digs  to  a  great  depth.  When 
this  channel  is  of  the  required  depth,  the  insect  deposits  in 
the  lower  part  a  first  egg  and  a  certain  quantity  of  alimentary 
matter.  It  fixes  above  this  egg  a  transverse  partition  with 
saliva  and  the  powder  of  wood ;  then  above  this  partition  it 
lays  a  second  egg,  makes  a  new  partition,  and  so  on  to  the  en- 
trance of  this  kind  of  well.  In  fine,  we  may  mention  that  the 
xylocopes  has  taken  care  to  pierce  at  the  level  of  each  cell  a 
passage  perpendicular  to  the  vertical  direction  of  the  cells,  and 
leading  from  the  interior  of  the  cell  to  the  outer  surface  of 
the  piece  of  wood.  In  this  manner  the  insect,  when  once  its 
metamorphoses  are  finished,  can  easily  emerge  from  its  cell.'  ^ 

2.  Construction  of  nests.  —  It  were  needless  to  insist  on 
the  marvels  of  the  construction  of  nests ;  let  it  suffice  to  cite 
some  examples. 

'  One  of  the  most  remarkable  nests  is  that  of  the  sat/a,  a 
little  Indian  bird  near  akin  to  our  bullfinches.  Its  form  is 
nearly  that  of  a  bottle,  and  it  is  suspended  on  branches  so 
flexible,  that  apes,  serpents,  and  even  squirrels  cannot  ap- 
proach it ;  but  to  render  it  more  inaccessible  to  its  numerous 
enemies,  the  bird  places  the  entrance  to  it  underneath,  so  that 
it  can  only  itself  enter  it  flying.  Inside  there  are  found  two 
chambers,  one  of  which  serves  the  female  to  hatch  her  eggs  : 
the  other  is  occupied  by  the  male,  who,  while  his  companion 
fulfils  her  maternal  duties,  cheers  her  with  his  songs.'  ^ 

'  The  salvia  sutoria,  a  charming  tom-tit,  takes  two  very 
long  lanceolated  leaves  of  a  tree,  and  sews  their  edges  care- 
fully together  by  overcasting,  by  means  of  a  piece  of  flexible 
grass  in  place  of  a  thread.  After  this  the  female  fills  with 
cotton  the  species  of  little  sac  thus  formed,  and  places  her 
progeny  in  this  soft  bed.' 

The  loriot  of  our  climes  performs  a  similar  act.  .  .  .  But 

1  Vulpian  (after  Reaumur),  Physiologic  du  systeme  nerveux,  p.  897. 

2  Milne-Edwards,  p.  240. 


THE   FACTS.  89 

it  is  remarkable  that  it  does  not  fasten  its  nest  with  grass,  but 
with  ends  of  twine  or  cotton  thread  which  it  has  stolen  from 
a  neighbouring  house  ;  and  the  question  is,  how  it  did  before 
industry  invented  pack-thread  or  spinning.'  ^ 

'  The  crested  grebe  hatches  its  young  in  a  veritable  raft 
which  floats  on  the  surface  of  our  ponds.  It  is  a  mass  of 
large  stalks  of  aquatic  herbs ;  and  as  these  contain  a  very 
considerable  quantity  of  air,  and  disengage  besides  in  decay- 
ing various  gases,  these  gases,  being  confined  by  the  plants, 
render  the  nest  lighter  than  the  water.  It  is  found  floating 
on  the  surface  in  solitary  places,  filled  with  tall  rushes  and 
great  reeds.  There,  in  this  improvised  ship,  the  female  on 
her  moist  bed  warms  her  young ;  but  if  some  disturber  comes 
to  discover  her,  if  any  thing  threatens  her  security,  the  wild 
bird  plunges  one  of  its  feet  into  the  water,  and  uses  it  as  an 
oar  to  remove  its  dwelling  to  a  distance.  The  little  boatman 
conducts  his  frail  skiff  where  he  pleases.  ...  It  is  a  little 
floating  isle.'  ^ 

3.  Villa  architecture.  —  Independently  of  nests,  those  use- 
ful and  necessary  structures,  actual  pleasure-gardens  are 
found  among  birds. 

'  The  cleverest  of  these  hedge-makers,  these  Lenotres  of 
ornithology,  is  the  speckled  chlamydere,  which  much  resembles 
our  partridge.  The  couple  proceed  with  order  in  construct- 
ing their  grove.  It  is  usually  in  a  bare  locality  they  place  it, 
for  the  sake  of  the  sun  and  light.  Their  first  care  is  to  make 
a  causeway  of  rounded  pebbles,  nearly  equal  in  size.  When 
the  size  and  thickness  of  this  appear  to  them  sufficient,  they 
commence  by  planting  there  a  little  avenue  of  branches. 
They  are  seen  bringing  from  the  fields,  with  this  view,  small 
shoots  of  trees  about  the  same  size,  which  they  thrust  firmly 
by  the  thick  end  into  the  interstices  of  the  pebbles.  These 
birds  arrange  the  branches  in  two  parallel  rows,  making  them 
all  converge  towards  each  other,  so  as  to  represent  a  hedge 
in  miniature.     This  improvised  plantation  is  almost  a  metre 

1  Pouchet,  V  Univers,  p.  143.  2  ibid.  p.  153. 


90  BOOK  I.   CHAPTER  II. 

in  length,  and  its  size  is  such  that  the  two  birds  can  play  or 
walk  abreast  under  the  protection  of  its  shade. 

'  The  grove  once  finished,  the  loving  couple  begin  to  think 
of  embellishing  it.  For  this  end  they  wander  all  round  the 
country,  and  steal  -ivery  shining  object  they  meet  with,  in 
order  to  ornament  its  entrance.  Shells  with  shining  mother- 
of-pearl  are  above  all  the  object  of  their  desire. 

*  If  these  collection-makers  find  in  the  country  pretty  birds' 
feathers,  'Jkey  gather  them  and  hang  them  instead  of  flowers 
on  the  faded  branches  of  their  dwellings.  It  is  even  certain 
that  in  their  neighbourhood  every  brightly-coloured  object 
with  which  the  soil  is  artificially  strewed  is  immediately 
removed  by  them.  Gould  (who  discovered  these  groves) 
informed  me  that  if  a  traveller  loses  his  watch,  knife,  or  seal, 
they  are  found  in  the  nearest  promenade  of  chlamyderes  of 
that  district.'  ^ 

III.  Instincts  of  Society. 

We  shall  not  much  insist  on  this  third  class  of  instincts,  it 
being  less  significant  from  our  point  of  view,  which  is  not  to 
find  impulses  in  animals  which  should  astonish  us,  but  to  find 
impulses  which  of  themselves,  spontaneously,  and  without 
study,  light  upon  the  surest  means  for  their  satisfaction.  This 
innate  finding  of  means,  which  cannot  be  attributed  even  to 
the  imitation  of  animals,  for  they  are  born  with  it,  ought 
therefore  to  be  put  to  the  account  of  nature.  In  this  sense 
the  social  instincts  have  perhaps  less  value  than  the  preced- 
ing facts.  Let  it  suffice  us  to  distinguish  two  sorts  of  socie- 
ties among  animals,  the  one  accidental,  the  other  permanent. 
'  In  the  first  class  will  be  ranked  the  companies  of  hyenas  and 
wolves,  which  collect  to  hunt  and  then  separate  ;  those  of 
migratory  animals  (swallows,  pigeons,  locusts,  herrings), 
which  only  unite  for  the  journey,  and  separate  at  the  end  of 
it ;  the  pleasure  parties  of  paroquets,  that  assemble  to  bathe 
or  play  in  the  water  and  then  separate.     In  the  other  class 

1  Pouchet,  rUnivers,  p.  153.  One  of  these  groves  has  been  brought  by 
Gould  t3  the  British  Museum. 


THE   FACTS.  91 

will  be  reckoned   the  well-known   colonies  of  the  beavers, 
wasps,  bees,  and  ants.'  ^ 

The  enumeration  of  facts  contained  in  this  chapter  is  far 
from  being  so  complete  as  would  be  necessary  in  a  dogm&tic 
work,  but  it  suffices  for  an  essay  of  critical  teleology  such  as 
we  have  attempted  here.  The  philosophical  and  critical 
analysis  of  finality  ought  not  to  be  swamped  in  the  descrip- 
tion of  facts ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  it  might  appear  too  dry 
and  abstract  if  we  too  much  neglected  this  help.  Between 
these  two  extremes  of  excess  and  defect  we  have  sought,  and 
we  hope  we  have  found,  the  just  medium.  We  can  now 
resume  the  series  of  our  inductions  and  reasonings. 

1  Milae-Edwards,  p.  244. 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE  INDUSTRY  OF  MAN  AND  THE  INDUSTRY  OF  NATURE. 

TTTE  have  in  a  previous  chapter  (chap,  i.)  founded  the 
'  '  existence  of  the  final  cause  on  this  principle,  that  when 
a  complex  combination  of  heterogeneous  phenomena  is  found 
to  agree  with  the  possibility  of  a  future  act,  which  was  not 
contained  beforehand  in  any  of  these  phenomena  in  particular, 
this  agreement  can  only  be  comprehended  by  the  human 
mind  by  a  kind  of  pre-existence,  in  an  ideal  form,  of  the 
future  act  itself,  which  transforms  it  from  a  result  into  an 
end — that  is  to  say,  into  a  final  cause. 

Perhaps  this  conclusion  will  be  found  premature ;  for,  it 
will  be  said,  the  agreement  in  question  doubtless  demands  an 
explanation,  and  no  one  pretends  that  adaptation  is  a  phe- 
nomenon without  cause,  but  to  affirm  that  the  cause  of  the 
adaptation  is  precisely  the  future  effect  itself,  in  the  form  of 
ideal  anticipation,  and  that  a  complex  combination  cannot  be 
found  in  agreement  with  an  ulterior  phenomenon,  without  this 
phenomenon  being  considered  as  itself  the  cause  of  that  com- 
bination, is  precisely  what  is  in  question.  On  what  do  you 
rely,  we  shall  be  asked,  to  give  to  this  future  phenomenon, 
which  only  appears  to  us  an  effect,  the  privilege  of  a  cause  ? 
Granted  there  is  a  cause ;  but  why  should  it  be  a  final  rather 
than  an  efficient  cause  ?  Whence  do  you  derive  this  right  to 
seek  the  cause  in  the  future  rather  than  in  the  past  ? 

It  must  be  confessed  that,  if  experience  had  not  given  us 
beforehand  somewhere  the  type  of  the  final  cause,  to  all 
appearance  we  never  could  have  invented  this  notion.  We 
do  not  know  beforehand  and  d  priori  that  every  agreement 
of  a  phenomenon  with  the  future  supposes  an  end ;  but  this 
92 


THE  INDUSTRY  OF  MAN  AND  THE  INDUSTRY  OF  NATURE.   93 

agreement  requiriug  to  be  explained,  we  explain  it  after 
the  model  which  we  find  in  ourselves,  when  we  make  some 
combination  with  a  view  to  the  future.  The  foundation  of 
this  conclusion,  accordingly,  as  has  always  been  thought,  is 
analogy. 

Bacon  recommends,  when  we  wish  to  prove  the  existence 
of  a  certain  cause,  to  seek  some  fact  in  which  this  cause  is 
manifested  in  a  very  visible  and  entirely  incontestable  man- 
ner. Those  facts  in  which  the  cause  sought  is  more  salient 
than  in  all  others,  Bacon  calls  clear  or  prerogative  facts ; 
there  are  numerous  examples  of  them  in  the  sciences.  Now, 
for  the  final  cause  we  have  before  our  eyes  a  fact  which  truly 
deserves  the  name  of  a  clear  and  'prerogative  fact,  namely,  the 
fact  of  human  art.  It  is  from  this  fact  that  we  pass  by  way 
of  analogy  to  other  facts,  less  evident,  but  similar.  This 
transition  common  sense  has  effected  from  the  earliest  times 
without  the  least  scruple;  philosophy  on  this  point  has  fol- 
lowed common  sense.  Do  strict  reason  and  a  sound  logic 
authorize,  do  they  justify,  such  a  procedure  ? 

It  is  objected  that  it  is  not  allowable  to  pass  by  way  of 
analogy  from  the  industry  of  man  to  that  of  nature ;  that  we 
have  no  reason  to  think  that  nature  acts  in  the  production  of 
her  works  as  man  acts  in  the  production  of  those  proper  to 
him.  Such  is  the  objection  of  the  Epicureans  and  of  David 
Hume,  adopted  later  by  Kant  and  by  all  the  Hegelian  school. 

It  is  important  to  remark,  first,  that  this  objection  may 
have  two  senses,  and  serve  to  establish  two  very  different 
conclusions.  It  can  bear  either  against  finality  or  against 
intentional ity.  In  the  former  case  it  would  mean,  as  the 
adherents  of  absolute  mechanism  maintain,  that  there  is  no , 
final  cause  at  all  in  nature,  but  only  consequences  and 
results.  In  the  latter  case  it  would  signify  that  there  may 
be  final  causes  in  nature,  but  that  one  is  not  bound  to  refer 
them,  as  one  does  in  the  case  of  human  works,  to  an  intelli- 
gent cause  ;  and  that  it  is  not  proved  that  an  acting  cause 
cannot  pursue  ends  unconsciously.     The  first  sense  is  that 


94  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  III. 

of  Epicurus,  and  of  modern  Positivism ;  the  second  is  that  of 
Kant,  Hegel,  Schopenhauer,  and  all  German  philosophy.  We 
have  above  very  carefully  distinguished  these  two  problems. 
The  question  at  present  is  only  about  the  first  sense :  it  is 
about  finality,  not  intentionality  ;  it  is  not  how  the  first  cause 
acts,  but  whether  the  second  causes,  as  they  are  given  to  us 
in  experience,  act  for  ends  or  not.  Within  these  limits,  is 
the  analogy  between  the  industry  of  man  and  that  of  nature 
legitimate  ?     This  is  at  present  the  only  question  before  us. 

Either  the  preceding  objection  signifies  nothing,  or  it  con- 
sists in  placing  in  opposition  to  each  other  nature  and  man, 
as  two  terms  heterogeneous  and  without  analogy.  It  consists 
in  opposing  as  two  worlds,  the  world  of  mind  and  the  world 
of  nature,  and  in  affirming  that  there  is  no  passing  from  the 
one  to  the  other.  In  fine,  this  objection  taken  strictly  would 
mean  that  there  are  two  creative  causes,  man  and  nature ; 
that  man  has  productions  which  are  proper  to  him,  and  that 
nature  has  them  as  well;  that  there  are  two  industries 
opposed  to  each  other ;  and  that,  not  knowing  how  nature 
acts,  we  cannot  attribute  to  it  the  mode  of  action  of  human 
industr3% 

Reduced  to  these  terms,  this  objection  evidently  falls  before 
this  very  simple  consideration,  namely,  that  man  is  not  out- 
side of  nature,  opposed  to  nature,  but  that  he  himself  forms 
part  of  nature,  —  that  he  is  a  member,  an  organ,  and  in  a 
certain  measure  a  product  of  it.  His  organism  is  adapted  to 
the  external  medium  in  which  he  lives.  He  undergoes  and 
accepts  all  the  conditions  of  the  physico-chemical  laws ;  these 
laws  are  fulfilled  in  the  organism  itself  as  well  as  outside  it. 
Moreover,  all  the  laws  of  life  in  general  common  to  vegetables 
and  animals,  and  all  the  laws  proper  to  animals,  are  fulfilled 
in  him  as  in  all  the  beings  of  nature.  His  soul  is  not  inde- 
pendent of  his  body :  by  perception  and  imagination  he 
plunges  into  purely  organic  life ;  reasoning  and  art  are  con- 
nected with  imagination,  with  memory,  and  with  perception. 
The  pure  reason  itself  is  connected  with  all  the  rest ;   and  if 


THE  INDUSTRY  Or'  MAN  AND  THE  INDUSTRY  OF  NATURE.  95^ 

by  the  most  elevated  part  of  his  being  he  belongs  to  a  higher 
world,  by  his  roots  he  clings  to  the  world  where  he  lives. 

Not  only  is  man  within  nature,  but  his  acts  and  works  are  ( 
within  nature,  and  thus  human  industry  itself  is  within  i 
nature.  One  is  astonished  to  see  nature  and  art  constantly 
opposed  in  the  18th  century,  as  if  art  were  not  itself  some- 
thing natural.^  Wherein  are  the  towns  built  by  man  less- 
within  nature  than  the  huts  of  beavers  and  the  cells  of  bees? 
In  what  respect  should  our  cradles  be  less  natural  than  the 
nests  of  birds  ?  In  what  respect  are  our  clothes  less  natural 
than  the  cocoons  of  the  silkworms  ?  In  what  respect  are  the 
songs  of  our  artistes  less  natural  than  the  song  of  birds? 
That  man  is  superior  to  nature  not  only  in  the  moral  and 
religious  sphere,  but  also  in  the  very  sphere  of  industry  and 
art,  is  not  doubtful ;  it  is  not  less  true  that  on  this  last  field, 
save  in  degree,  man  comports  himself  entirely  as  a  natural 
agent. 

This  point  well  established,  we  have  reduced  to  its  proper 
terms  the  induction  which  warrants  us  to  transfer  the  final 
cause  from  ourselves  to  nature.  Experience,  we  shall  say,, 
presents  to  us  conspicuously  in  a  given  case  a  real  and 
certain  cause,  which  we  call  final  cause  ;  is  it  not  legitimate 
to  suppose  the  same  cause  in  analogous  cases,  with  a  degree  of 
probability  increasing  and  decreasing  with  the  analogy  itself? 
We  do  not,  then,  pass  from  one  genus  to  another ;  but  in  the 
same  genus,  namely,  nature,  a  certain  number  of  homogeneous 
facts  being  given,  we  follow  the  course  of  the  analogy  as  far 
as  it  can  conduct  us,  and  up  to  the  point  where  it  leaves  us» 
Such  is,  in  truth,  the  inductive  method  which  the  human 
mind  follows  in  affirming  final  causes  outside  of  us.^     The 

1  '  What  else  is  art  than  the  embellishment  of  nature  ?  Thou  canst  add 
some  colours  to  adorn  this  admirable  picture,  but  how  couldst  thou  move  ever 
80  little  a  machine,  so  strong  and  so  delicate,  if  there  were  not  in  thyself, 
and  in  some  part  of  thy  being,  some  art  derived  from  that  first  art,  some 
resemblance,  some  outflow,  some  portion  of  that  operative  spirit  that  has  made 
the  world  ? '  —  Bossuet,  Sermons  stir  la  mart. 

-  M.  Caro  has  objected  to  us  (Journal  des  savants),  that  there  was  no  need  to 
set  out  from  the  fact  of  human  industry  to  establish  the  final  cause  outside  of 


■96  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  III. 

detailed   analysis   of  this   method  will  enable  us  better  tc 
understand  its  range  and  exactness. 

We  have  said  we  must  set  out  from  the  principle  of  human 
industry,  but,  strictly  speaking,  we  must  go  back  farther  still. 
What  we  call  human  industry  is  not,  properly  speaking,  a 
fact,  but  is  itself  a  mediate  conclusion  obtained  by  way  of 
analogy.  Indeed,  what  passes  in  the  soul  of  our  fellow-men  is 
absolutely  unknown  and  inaccessible  to  us,  at  least  by  way  of 
direct  observation.  We  see  only  their  acts  and  the  external 
manifestations  of  their  feelings  and  thoughts.  In  calling 
certain  of  these  actions  by  the  names  of  industry  and  art,  we 
mean  that  these  actions  are  collected  co-ordinations  towards 
an  end,  —  that  is  to  say,  phenomena  determined  by  the  idea  of 
the  future,  and  in  which  the  consequent  is  the  determining 
reason  of  the  antecedent.  But  this  is  only  a  supposition  ;  for, 
not  having  any  direct  experience  of  the  efficient  cause  of  these 
phenomena,  we  cannot  absolutely  affirm  that  that  cause  has 
proposed  to  itself  the  end  which  it  seems  to  pursue,  nor  even 
that  it  has  purposed  any  end.  Sometimes  we  even  err  in 
thinking  that  we  see  an  end  where  there  is  only  blind 
mechanism.  For  instance,  I  have  somewhere  ^  quoted  the 
case  of  an  old  curate  who  had  become  insane,  and  who  used 
to  recite  with  the  utmost  eloquence  the  famous  exordium  of 
Father  Bridaine.  To  hear  him,  it  would  have  been  impossible 
not  to  suppose  that  he  knew  what  he  was  doing,  and  that  his 
object  was  to  move  his  auditors.     And  yet  with  him  it  was 


us,  that  we  affirmed  that  cause  directly  and  immediately  in  view  of  organized 
beings.  But  then  an  a  priori  principle  of  final  causes  must  be  admitted, 
which  we  have  refuted  (preliminary  chap.).  Otherwise,  if  the  final  cause  is  an 
induction,  we  must  start  from  a  fact  in  which  the  fact  of  foresight  and  pre- 
ordination is  given  us  immediately  in  experience  ;  but  that  only  takes  place  in 
the  human  consciousness.  Externally  and  objectively  we  only  see  phenomena 
that  succeed  each  other,  and  nothing  warrants  us  to  say  that  that  which  pre- 
cedes is  preordained  by  that  which  follows.  However,  human  industry  is 
only  the  first  thread  of  the  induction  that  makes  us  pass  from  ourselves  to  that 
which  is  not  we.  And  supposing  that  men  do  not  always  pass  by  this  inter- 
mediary, we  have  the  right  to  make  use  of  it  for  the  complete  strictness  of  the 
reasoning. 

1  Le  cerveau  et  la  pens^e,  chap.  vli.  p.  140. 


TIJE   INDUSTRY  OF   iMAN   AND   THE    INDUSTRY  OF  NATURE.       97 

an  act  entirely  automatic,  for  not  only  was  he  insane,  but  had 
reached  the  last  stage  of  what  is  called  senile  dementia,  which 
is  entire  imbecility ;  he  was  unable  to  say  two  sensible  words, 
and  even  to  utter  them,  and  yet  the  old  mechanism  still  went, 
and  seemed  still  to  have  the  same  adaptation  to  an  end.  We 
see  from  this  instance  how  true  it  is  that  our  belief  in  the 
intelligence  of  our  fellows  is  an  induction,  and  even  a  simple 
belief  founded  on  analogy,  so  much  so  that  in  some  cases  this 
belief  is  contradicted  by  facts. 

How,  then,  do  we  come  to  suppose  intelligence  and  finality 
in  our  fellow-men  ?  Evidently  by  comparison  with  ourselves. 
As  the  only  really  efificient  cause  which  we  know  is  ourselves, 
so  the  only  final  cause  that  is  immediately  perceptible  to  us  is 
in  ourselves.  In  certain  cases,  indeed,  —  for  instance,  in  volun- 
tary actions, —  we  are  conscious  not  only  of  an  active  force  that 
displays  itself  in  us,  but  of  a  certain  idea  that  serves  to  regu- 
late that  active  force,  and  in  virtue  of  which  we  co-ordinate 
the  internal  and  subjective  phenomena  of  our  mind,  and  con- 
sequently the  corresponding  motions  of  our  organism.  We 
give  the  name  of  end  to  the  last  phenomenon  of  the  series,  in 
reference  to  which  all  the  others  are  co-ordinated  :  and  this 
co-ordination  of  phenomena  and  of  actions  is  explained  for  us 
in  the  simplest  manner  by  the  supposition  of  an  anterior  idea 
of  the  end.  I  know  very  well,  for  instance,  that  if  I  had  not 
beforehand  the  idea  of  a  house,  I  could  not  co-ordinate  all 
the  phenomena  whose  conjunction  is  necessary  to  construct  a 
house.  I  know  very  well  that  it  has  never  happened  to  me 
to  succeed  in  making  a  phrase  by  taking  words  at  random 
from  a  dictionary ;  I  know  that  I  have  never  succeeded  in 
composing  an  air  by  touching  at  random  the  keys  of  a  piano  ; 
I  know  that  even  to  succeed  in  formins:  a  thoucjht  I  must 
collect  divergent  phenomena  in  a  common  idea ;  I  know  that 
I  cannot  co-ordinate  the  elements  of  matter  in  a  whole,  with- 
out having  previously  formed  an  idea  of  that  whole.  In  a 
word,  I  know  that  with  me  every  induction,  and  every  art, 
supposes  a  certain  end,  a  certain  finalitv,  or,  as  we  have  ex- 


98  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  III. 

pressed  ourselves,  a  certain  determination  of  the  present  b^ 
the  future. 

In  truth,  there  occur  in  me  —  more  rarely,  doubtless,  than 
in  the  animals,  but  yet  often  enough  —  phenomena  which 
present  co-ordinations  similar  to  the  preceding,  without  me 
being  conscious  of  the  end  which  determines  them.  These  ac- 
tions, which  are  called  instinctive,  have,  therefore,  as  it  seems, 
the  same  character  as  voluntary  acts,  and  yet  nothing  war- 
rants us  to  affirm  that  they  are  determined  by  the  anterior  idea 
of  the  end,  nor  even  that  they  are  determined  with  reference 
to  an  end ;  for  that  is  precisely  what  has  to  be  demonstrated. 

We  reply  that,  just  because  these  instinctive  acts  of  hu- 
man nature  are  analogous  to  the  phenomena  of  nature  in 
general,  whose  explanation  we  are  seeking,  it  is  not  from 
them  we  can  set  out  to  explain  the  others ;  for  that  would 
be  to  explain  obscurum  per  obscurum.  But  apart  from  these 
instincts,  we  find  in  ourselves,  in  a  notorious  and  striking 
case,  the  existence  of  a  real  cause,  which  is  finality,  and 
whose  criterion  is  the  co-ordination  of  the  present  to  the 
future  in  respect  of  an  anticipated  idea :  such  is  the  charactei 
of  voluntary  activity. 

There  is,  therefore,  at  least  one  case  in  which  the  final 
cause  is  established  by  experience,  namely,  the  case  of  our 
personal  and  voluntary  activity.  From  this  centre  we  can 
radiate  around  ourselves;  and  the  first  certain  step  which 
we  take  beyond  ourselves  is  to  affirm  intelligence,  causality^ 
desire,  and,  finally,  finality,  in  our  fellows. 

In  fact,  when  we  see  in  other  men  a  succession  of  acts  co- 
ordinated as  our  own  are  in  the  case  of  voluntary  activity,  — 
for  instance,  when  we  see  a  man  walking  in  the  street,  speak- 
ing, moving  his  limbs  in  a  regular  manner,  bringing  bodies 
together  with  order  and  method,  putting  stones  upon  each 
other,  planks  between  the  stones,  iron  between  the  planks, 
or  tracing  characters  on  the  sand  or  upon  paper,  marks  upon 
canvas,  covering  these  marks  with  colour,  cutting  stone,  giv- 
ing it  this  or  that  form,  etc.,  —  when  we  see,  I  say,  all  tlieso 


THE  INDUSTRY  OF  MAN  AND  THE  INDUSTRY  OF  NATURE.   99 

actions,  although  we  were  not  present  at  the  internal  scene 
which  passes  in  the  mind  of  these  agents  like  ourselves,  and 
although  by  way  of  exception  we  might  be  mistaken,  yet  in 
the  immense  majority  of  cases  we  are  warranted  to  suppose 
—  and  we  do  suppose  with  absolute  certainty  —  that  actions 
like  all  those  we  have  just  mentioned,  and  which  are  them- 
selves like  our  voluntary  actions,  are  actions  determined  by 
an  end.  We  suppose,  therefore,  in  the  case  of  other  men  the 
final  cause  as  with  ourselves ;  and  this  is  a  first  and  certain 
extension  of  the  idea  of  finality. 

That  is  not  all :  we  do  not  even  need  to  witness  the  series 
of  actions  of  our  fellows  to  conclude  that  there  is  an  end ; 
and,  with  time  and  habit,  it  suffices  us  to  see  the  result  ot 
them,  to  assume  in  the  very  product  of  human  activity  means 
and  ends.  This  is,  in  fact,  one  of  the  characteristics  of  human 
activity,  that  it  does  not  shut  itself  up  within  itself,  that  it 
acts  beyond  itself  on  nature  and  on  bodies.  It  is  a  fact  that 
bodies  are  susceptible  of  motion ;  they  can  therefore  be 
brought  together  and  separated ;  they  can  be  separated  from 
the  combinations  into  which  they  naturally  enter,  in  order  to 
enter  into  new  combinations.  And  it  is  a  very  remarkable 
fact,  and  of  the  highest  importance  for  our  subject,  that  these 
bodies,  although  blindly  obedient  to  the  laws  of  nature,  can  at 
the  same  time,  without  any  violation  of  these  laws,  be  co-or- 
dinated according  to  the  ideas  of  our  mind.  Thus  the  stones 
which  form  a  house  certainly  obey  the  laws  of  gravity  and  all 
the  laws  of  mechanics,  and  yet  they  are  capable  of  entering 
into  a  thousand  relations,  all  compatible  with  the  laws  of 
mechanics,  and  which  are  yet  predetermined  by  the  mind. 

But,  we  say,  it  is  not  necessary  for  us  to  witness  the  active 
operation  by  which  the  intelligence  and  the  will  of  our  fellows 
have  given  this  or  that  form  to  matter.  Experience  soon 
teaches  us  to  recognise  among  the  bodies  which  surround  us 
those  that  are  the  product  of  nature  and  those  that  result 
from  human  art ;  and  knowing  that,  as  regards  ourselves,  it 
has  always  been  impossible  to  realize  such  products  without 


100  BOOK  I.   CHAPTER  III. 

having  willed  them,  —  that  is  to  say,  without  having  had  an 
end,  —  we  accustom  ourselves  to  regard  them  immediately  as- 
means  for  ends.  Thus,  as  writing  is  for  us  only  a  means  of 
expressing  thought,  we  suppose,  when  we  see  unknown  char- 
acters, —  for  instance,  the  cuneiform,  —  that  they  must  have 
been  means  of  expression,  graphic  signs  to  express  thought. 
As  we  do  not  rear  buildings  by  chance  and  without  knowing 
why,  we  suppose,  when  we  see  buildings  such  as  the  Pyramids 
or  the  Celtic  menhirs,  that  they  have  been  constructed  for 
an  end ;  and  we  inquire  what  it  can  have  been.  In  a  word^ 
in  all  the  works  of  human  industry  we  see  means  and  ends ; 
and  even  when  we  cannot  discover  what  the  end  is,  we  are 
persuaded  that  there  is  one. 

We  regard  it,  therefore,  as  certain  that,  whether  we  consider 
in  others  the  course  of  their  actions,  or  consider  the  products 
of  these  actions,  we  see  between  these  actions  and  our  own 
such  a  similarity,  that  we  do  not  hesitate  to  conclude  in  their 
case,  as  in  our  own,  that  every  combination  directed  towards- 
the  future  implies  an  end. 

If  now  we  descend  a  step,  we  will  see  in  the  animals  a 
multitude  of  actions  so  like  those  of  man  that  it  is  impossible 
for  us  not  to  attribute  them  to  like  causes.  Wherein  does 
the  action  by  which  an  animal  watches  and  pursues  its  prey, 
lays  snares  for  it,  surprises  and  devours  it,  differ  from  the 
action  by  wliich  the  hunter  pursues  and  seizes  that  animal 
itself?  Wherein  does  the  action  by  which  the  animal  hides 
itself,  avoids  the  snares  laid  for  it,  invents  ruses  for  its  de- 
fence, differ  from  the  action  by  which  the  savage  seeks  to 
escape  his  enemies,  and  the  more  complicated  but  analogous 
action  by  which  the  general  of  an  army  retreats  before  the 
enemy  ?  It  is  the  same  with  the  most  of  the  animal  actions 
by  which  the  beasts  seek  the  satisfaction  of  their  wants. 
These  wants  being  the  same  as  with  man,  although  simpler, 
the  means  which  satisfy  them  must  be  also  the  same.  Hence 
those  analogies  which  have  struck  all  observers.  We  are 
therefore  authorized  to  argue  from  man  to  the  animal ;  and 


THE   INDUSTRY  OF  MAN  AND  THE   INDUSTRY   OF  NATURE.     101 

since  we  have  seen  that  raeu  act  for  an  end,  we  are  equally      ^ 
entitled  to  conclude  that  the  animals  act  for  an  end. 

Now,  among  the  actions  of  animals  we  generally  distinguish 
two  kinds.     In  the  one,  the  animal  seems  to  act  like  man  by 
a  kind  of  reflection  and  foresight,  having  voluntarily  arranged  i 
beforehand  the  means  for  a  desired  end.    What  characterises    ! 
this  sort  of  actions  is  that  the  animal  does  not  perform  them    ; 
at  first  with   the  perfection  which  it  will   attain   later.     It    | 
learns,  it  becomes  more  and  more  skilful ;  experience,  habit, 
comparison,  seem    to  have  a  share  in   the   formation  of  its- 
judgments.    Such,  at  least,  is  the  case  according  to  observers 
favourable  to  animals.     This  first  sort  of  actions  would  there- 
fore be,  except  in  degree,  analogous  to  the  deliberate  and 
voluntary  actions  of  the  human  race. 

But  there  are  other  actions,  which  it  is  said  differ  essen- 
tially from  the  preceding,  although  as  complicated  and  pre- 
senting exactly  the  same  character,  namely,  the  adaptation  of 
certain  means  to  the  satisfaction  of  a  want.  Here  there  is  nO' 
education,  at  least  apparently  nothing  to  indicate  the  succes- 
sive efforts  of  a  mind  which  is  being  formed  and  is  learning, 
—  nothing  that  is  personal  to  the  individual.  The  animal 
seems  from  the  first  to  act  as  it  will  act  all  its  life ;  it  knows^ 
things  without  having  learned  them ;  it  performs  very  com- 
plicated and  precise  operations  with  perfect  correctness, 
almost  infallibly  and  immutably. 

Thus  in  the  second  kind  of  actions,  called  instinctive,  all 
that  we  are  accustomed  to  regard  as  characteristic  of  intel- 
ligence is  awanting,  —  progress,  fallibility,  individuality,  hesi- 
tation —  in  a  word,  liberty.  May  there  be,  then,  a  kind  of  '■■ 
intelligence  of  which  we  have  no  idea?  Have  the  animals 
a  kind  of  innate  knowledge,  and,  as  it  were,  a  reminiscence 
analogous  to  that  of  which  Plato  dreamed  ?  Have  they  innate- 
habits  ?  We  do  not  know,  and  in  our  ignorance  of  the  real 
cause  of  these  astonishing  actions,  we  do  not  seek  to  form  any 
idea  of  it,  and  call  that  hidden  cause  instinct,  whatever  it  may 
be.    But  if,  in  their  origin,  in  their  cause,  these  actions  differ 


102  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  III. 

from  human  actions,  in  their  intrinsic  and  essential  nature 
they  do  not  differ.  On  the  contrary,  among  animal  actions 
it  is  just  these  which  most  resemble  the  most  complicated  ac- 
tions of  human  industry.  Indeed,  they  are  not  merely  actions, 
they  are  also  productions ;  not  only  does  the  animal  walk, 
fly,  sing,  draw  near  or  flee,  take  or  bring,  but  besides,  like  a 
veritable  workman,  it  makes  the  forces  and  elements  of  nature 
subserve  its  wants.  Like  man,  it  builds  ;  like  man,  it  weaves 
and  lays  snares ;  like  man,  it  gathers  and  makes  storehouses ; 
like  man,  it  prepares  an  abode  for  its  young ;  like  man,  it 
makes  itself  pleasure-houses,  it  makes  itself  clothes;  in  a 
word,  it  exercises  all  the  industries.  Thus  these  instinctive 
actions  are  at  once  very  different  from  the  actions  of  man  as 
to  their  origin,  and  very  similar  as  to  the  matter  of  them. 
Now  what  characterises  the  actions  of  man  is  to  act  know- 
ingly for  an  end.  As  to  the  actions  of  which  we  are  speak- 
ing, everything  leads  to  the  belief,  that  they  are  not  done 
knowingly.  But  apart  from  this  difference,  the  similarity  is 
-entire.  It  therefore  remains  to  be  said  that,  without  knowing 
it,  these  animals  act  for  an  end.  Thus  the  end  which  we  had 
already  recognised  in  the  intelligent  actions  of  animals  can- 
not disappear  merely  because  we  here  meet  with  a  new  and  un- 
expected condition,  namely  unconsciousness.  Instinct,  then, 
will  reveal  to  us  an  unconscious  finality,  but  still  a  finality. 

True,  we  may  be  stopped  here  by  some  one  who  might  say 
to  us,  that  as  soon  as  we,  by  hypothesis,  remove  every  previous 
idea  of  the  end,  with  all  foresight,  and  consequently  all 
intelligence,  the  word  finality  no  longer  represents  anything 
whatever,  and  there  is  nothing  else  than  the  effect  of  a  given 
mechanism ;  that,  consequently,  the  sequence  of  our  induc- 
tions and  analogies  necessarily  stops  where  intelligence  stops ; 
that,  of  course,  intelligence  proposes  an  end  to  itself,  but  that, 
apart  from  intelligence,  nothing  remains  but  causes  and  effects. 
On  this  supposition  it  would  be  granted  that  man  acts  for  an 
end ;  that  the  animal  itself,  when  it  is  guided  by  intelligence 
and  appetite,  acts  for  an  end ;  but  when  it  acts  instinctively, 


THE  INDUSTRY  OF  MAN  AND  THE  INDUSTRY  OF  NATURE.  103 

it  would  be  maintained  that  it  no  longer  has  an  end,  and  that 
then  its  actions  are  developed  exclusively  according  to  the 
law  of  causality. 

But  who  does  not  see  that  the  difificulty  raised  would  only 
decidedly  avail  against  those  who  should  believe  themselves 
obliged  to  admit  an  unconscious  finality  at  the  origin  of 
things,  but  not  against  those  who  admit  an  ordaining  intel- 
ligence ?  For,  in  order  that  an  object  may  appear  to  us  as  a 
collection  of  means  and  ends,  that  is,  as  a  work  of  art,  it 
is  not  at  all  necessary  that  the  intelligence  reside  in  it ;  it  is 
enough  if  it  be  apart  from  it  in  the  cause  that  has  produced 
it.  Thus,  in  an  automaton  we  do  not  fail  to  recognise  means 
and  ends,  although  the  automaton,  properly  speaking,  acts 
without  an  end ;  for  we  know  that  the  intelligence  which  is 
not  in  it  is  without  it,  and  that  what  it  cannot  foresee  of 
itself  has  been  foreseen  by  another.  In  the  same  way,  sup- 
posing that  in  the  animal  there  is  not  a  certain  occult  force 
virtually  containing  the  power  to  act  for  an  end,  —  supposing, 
with  Descartes,  that  the  animal,  so  far  as  it  acts  instinctively, 
is  a  mere  machine,  and  is  destitute  of  all  internal  activity,  — 
even  in  this  case  we  would  not  have  to  conclude  that  its 
actions  are  not  co-ordinated  with  reference  to  an  end,  since 
the  intelligence  which  was  not  in  it  might  very  well  be  out- 
side of  it,  in  the  first  cause  that  had  made  it. 

But  we  have  no  need  here  to  raise  these  questions;  we 
have  not  to  interrogate  ourselves  on  the  nature  and  the  cause 
of  instinct,  and,  in  general,  on  the  primary  cause  of  finality. 
We  do  not  yet  inquire  whence  it  comes  that  there  are  ends 
in  nature ;  we  inquire  whether  there  are  any  —  whether  such 
a  fact,  such  an  act,  and  such  an  operation,  ought  to  be  called 
by  this  name.  Now  why  should  the  same  fact,  exactly  the 
same,  produced  by  means  strictly  similar  (although  the  oper- 
ation be  instinctive,  in  place  of  being  voluntary),  be  called 
in  this  case  an  end^  in  that  a  result  ?  Why  should  the  web 
of  the  workman  be  an  end,  the  web  of  the  spider  a  result  ? 
Why  should  men's  granaries  be  an  end,  and  the  granaries  of 


104  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  III. 

animals  a  result?  the  houses  of  men  an  end,  the  cabins  of 
beavers  a  result  ?  We  therefore  believe  ourselves  warranted 
to  say  that  if  intelligent  actions  are  directed  towards  an  end^ 
the  same  actions,  when  they  are  instinctive,  are  equally 
directed  towards  an  end. 

It  may  be  urged  that  it  is  not  true  that  the  same  action 
which  has  an  end  when  it  is  voluntary,  must  equally  have 
one  when  it  is  involuntary ;  for  it  is  precisely  so  far  as  it  is 
voluntary  that  it  has  an  end.  We  begin  by  moving  our 
limbs  without  an  end,  before  moving  them  voluntarily  for  an 
end  :  the  infant  cries  without  an  end,  before  crying  volunta- 
rily for  an  end.  To  act  for  an  end  is  to  transform  a  natural 
action  into  a  voluntary  one  —  no  volition,  no  end.  But,  con- 
sidering matters  more  closely,  it  would  seem  that  these  first 
motions  or  first  cries  are  considered  fortuitous  and  without 
an  end,  not  because  they  are  involuntary,  but  because  they 
are  unregulated,  spontaneous,  without  direction,  while  the 
voluntary  motions  have  an  order,  rule,  and  direction.  Now 
this  is  precisely  what  instinctive  motions  have  in  common 
with  voluntary,  —  they  are  not  irregular  movements,  like 
those  of  the  infant  which  moves  in  its  cradle ;  they  are  com- 
bined motions,  and,  rigorously  calculated,  absolutely  similar 
(except  as  to  origin,  which  we  ignore)  to  voluntary  motions. 
Thus  the  motions  of  the  ant,  which  goes  for  food  and  returns 
laden  to  the  storehouse,  are  quite  similar  to  the  movements- 
of  the  peasants,  who  go  to  make  their  hay  and  reap  their 
harvests,  and  bring  them  to  their  barns ;  and  the  motions  of 
the  animal  which  swims  without  having  learned,  are  exactly 
the  same  as  those  of  man,  who  only  learns  to  swim  slowly 
and  with  many  efi'orts. 

Thus  instinct  supposes  an  end.  But  let  us  advance  a  step. 
We  have  passed  from  our  personal  finality  to  finality  in 
other  men,  from  finality  in  the  industrious  actions  of  other 
men  to  finality  in  the  industrious  actions  of  animals,  whether 
these  actions  present  the  appearance  of  some  foresiglit  and 
reflection,  or  appear  to  us  absolutely  automatic.     We  have 


THE  INDUSTRY  OF  MAN  AND  THE  INDUSTRY  OF  NATURE.  105 

BOW  to  pass  from  the  external  actions  of  the  animal,  which 
are  called  its  instincts,  to  its  internal  operations,  which  are 
called  its  functions.    This  is  the  kernel  of  our  whole  deduction. 

On  reflection,  it  will  appear  that  these  two  kinds  of  opera- 
tions, instincts  and  functions,  are  not  essentially  distinct 
from  each  other ;  and  it  is  as  difficult  to  separate  instinct  from 
function  properly  so  called,  as  it  is  to  distinguish  intelligence 
from  instinct  in  the  animal.  The  name  of  instinct  is  applied 
more  particularly  to  certain  acts  of  the  organs  of  relation,  that 
is  to  say,  of  the  locomotive  organs ;  and  so  far  as  these  acts 
are  constituted  by  a  series  of  phenomena  always  the  same  in 
all  the  individuals  of  the  same  species,  we  give  the  name  of 
instinct  to  that  chain  of  automatic  acts  forming  a  determinate 
whole.  But  wherein  does  this  special  chain  differ  from  that 
other  chain  of  acts  which  is  called  a  function?  Wherein 
does  the  art  of  weaving  a  spider's  web  differ  from  that  of  the 
singing  of  birds  ?  and  wherein  does  the  art  of  singing  differ 
from  the  art  of  seizing,  of  swallowing,  and  of  distribution, 
which  constitute  the  art  of  self-nutrition?  Is  there  not 
visible  in  both  cases  a  series  of  phenomena  connected  in  a 
constant  manner  and  following  a  systematic  order  ?  and  is  not 
this  systematic  connection  in  both  cases  a  co-ordination  of 
phenomena  with  reference  to  a  future  phenomenon,  which  is 
the  preservation  of  the  animal  ?  Whether  the  animal  take 
its  prey  in  a  snare,  like  the  spider,  or  take  it  by  means  of  its 
talons,  and  then  tear  and  swallow  it,  like  the  lion,  each  of  these 
phenomena  is  of  the  same  order  as  the  preceding ;  and  if  it 
were  correct  to  say  that  instinctive  operations  have  an  end, 
it  will  be  equally  correct  to  say  that  all  the  functions,  which 
are  themselves  only  instinctive  operations,  have  one  as  well. 

(jrerman  philosophy  has  thought  to  establish  a  great  dif- 
ference between  the  industry  of  man  and  vital  industry  in 
this,  that  in  the  works  of  man^  the  agent  is  outside  his  work, 

1  V7e  will  have  occasion  to  revert  to  this  question  farther  on  (see  Book  ii. 
chap.  ii.  Of  Unconscious  Finality)  ;  we  only  handle  it  here  in  its  relation  to  our 
present  investigation. 


106  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  III. 

which  cannot  modify  itself;  while,  in  the  works  of  nature, 
the  agent  is  hidden  in  the  very  midst  of  the  organism,  and 
transforms  it  from  within  and  not  from  without.  This  dif- 
ference, long  ago  specified  by  Aristotle,  is  perhaps  more 
apparent  than  real,  and  does  not  concern  our  present  question. 
Many  functions  that  are  internal  in  certain  animals  are 
external  in  others,  and  it  would  be  very  difficult  to  say  where 
function  commences,  where  industry.  Incubation,  which  is 
internal  in  the  viviparous,  is  external  in  the  oviparous  animals. 
Does  the  hen  which  hatches  its  eggs  exercise  a  function  or  an 
industry  ?  To  hatch  its  eggs  or  promote  the  hatching  of  them 
by  the  heat  of  its  body,  like  the  hen,  or  to  hatch  the  eggs  and 
afterwards  to  promote  the  development  of  the  young  by  the 
heat  of  the  nest,  are  these  essentially  different  phenomena  ? 
Are  not  the  internal  incubation  of  the  viviparous,  the  external 
incubation  of  the  oviparous,  and  artificial  incubation  by  nidi- 
fication,  the  same  degrees  of  one  and  the  same  instinctive 
function?  In  fine,  what  is  even  human  industry  but  a 
development  of  function  ?  What  is  a  function  but  an  internal 
industry  ?  What  do  the  teeth  perform  but  a  process  of  grind- 
ing, the  heart  but  a  work  of  pumping,  the  stomach  but  a 
chemical  labour  ?  And  reciprocally,  what  do  we  do  when  we 
wear  spectacles,  when  we  apply  a  trumpet  to  our  ear,  when 
we  employ  the  cesophagic  sound,  or  even  when  we  take  a 
stick,  but  prolong  externally  the  internal  function?  And 
wherein  do  these  external  means  differ,  except  in  coarseness, 
from  the  instruments  created  by  nature  itself? 

Since  we  can  reproduce  each  of  these  operations  by 
artificial  mechanical  agents,  why  should  not  each  of  these 
operations  be  a  mechanical  industrial  operation  ?  Hence  it 
follows  that  function  being  identical  with  instinct,  instinct 
with  the  industry  of  man,  it  will  be  strictly  true  to  say  of 
function  what  is  true  of  the  industry  of  man  —  namely,  that 
it  is  a  series  of  phenomena  determined  beforehand  by  a  last 
phenomenon  which  is  the  reason  of  it ;  in  other  words,  that 
it  is  a  chain  of  means  adapted  to  an  end. 


THE  INDUSTRY  OF  MAN  AND  THE  INDUSTRY  OF  NATURE.  107 

There  remains,  however,  a  profound  difference  between 
functional  industry  and  human  —  namely,  that  artificial  in- 
dustry constructs  the  machines  it  has  need  of  to  perform  its 
operations,  while  the  animal  functions  are  only  the  operations 
of  machines  already  constructed.  Thus  man  makes  pumps, 
but  the  animal  has  received  from  nature  a  natural  pump, 
the  heart,  to  cause  the  blood  to  circulate ;  man  makes 
spectacles,  but  the  animal  has  received  ready  made  from 
nature  the  eyes,  which  are  veritable  spectacles,  etc.  This 
difference  is  considerable.  But  let  us  ascend  to  the  origin 
of  these  natural  machines.  Whatever  be  the  cause  that  has 
constructed  them  —  be  it  the  soul  itself,  as  the  Animists  will 
have  it,  the  vital  force  of  the  Vitalists,  the  nature  of  the 
Pantheists,  the  immediate  act  of  a  creator  God,  or  even 
matter  with  its  primordial  properties  —  is  of  little  conse- 
quence ;  in  any  case  this  cause,  in  constructing  these  machines, 
has  performed  a  series  of  operations  entirely  resembling 
those  of  a  workman  constructing  analogous  machines.  What 
difference  is  there  between  the  act  by  which  nature  has 
created  a  crystalline,  and  the  act  by  which  man  constructs 
lenses  ?  What  difference  between  the  act  by  which  nature 
creates  molar  teeth,  and  the  act  by  which  man  makes  mill- 
stones ?  What  difference  between  the  act  by  which  nature 
makes  fins,  and  the  act  by  which  man  creates  instruments 
of  natation  ? 

There  are  two  differences :  the  first  is  that  nature  does  not 
know  what  it  is  doing,  while  man  does ;  the  second,  that  in  the 
one  case  the  implements  are  internal,  in  the  other  external. 
But  these  differences  do  not  destroy  the  profound  analogies  of 
the  two  kinds  of  action ;  and  there  still  remains  in  both  cases 
a  creation  of  machines.  Now,  how  could  the  same  machine 
be  considered  here  as  a  collection  of  means  and  ends,  there 
as  a  simple  coincidence  of  causes  and  effects  ?  How  should 
the  construction  of  an  apparatus  for  flying  infer  in  the  case 
of  man,  if  it  were  discovered,  a  miracle  of  genius  and 
invention,  so  complicated  is  the  problem,  so  difficult  in  this 


1y 


108  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  III. 

case  to  adapt  the  means  to  the  end ;  and  yet  the  solution 
of  the  same  problem,  found  by  nature  itself,  be  the  simple 
/  effect  of  a  coincidence  of  causes  ?  Can  we  thus  assign  two 
absolutely  opposite  causes  to  two  absolutely  identical  actions  ? 
As  regards  the  two  differences  mentioned,  let  us  notice 
first,  that,  between  the  unconscious  industry  which  creates  the 
organs  and  the  human  industry  which  creates  the  machines, 
there  is  placed  an  intermediate  phenomenon,  the  instinctive 
industry  of  the  animals.  This  industry  is  unconscious  like 
the  first,  and  it  is  external  like  the  second.  Like  human 
industry,  instinct  creates  for  the  animal  supplementary 
apparatus,  which  are  appendices  of  organs ;  like  the  vital 
force,  instinct  is  unconscious,  and  does  not  know  what  it  is 
doing.  Is  not  the  vital  force  (and  I  mean  by  that  the 
unknown  cause,  whatever  it  be,  that  creates  the  organs) 
itself  an  instinct  that  assimilates  the  elements  of  external 
matter,  to  make  of  them  the  apparatus  necessary  to  the 
execution  of  its  functions?  And  what  does  it  matter 
whether  these  apparatus  be  internal  or  external?  Do  they 
change  their  character  by  being  inseparable  from  the  animal 
itself,  that  is,  by  being  entirely  bound  to  the  organic  machine, 
so  as  at  once  to  profit  and  to  suffer  from  all  that  happens  to 
the  whole  system? 

Yet  once  again,  then,  I  do  not  ignore  the  differences 
between  nature  and  art,  and  I  will  have  occasion  to  revert  to 
them  later,  but  they  do  not  signify  here.  Doubtless  human 
works  have  not  in  themselves  the  principle  of  their  motion, 
while  nature,  as  Aristotle  rightly  says,  and  above  all  living 
nature,  has  in  itself  the  principle  of  its  motion  and  its  rest. 
But  the  question.  To  what  point  is  a  being  endowed  with 
internal  and  spontaneous  activity?  is  of  a  different  order 
from  this.  Whether  are  there  in  that  being  means  and  ends  ? 
Now  in  both  cases,  in  the  works  of  art  as  well  as  in  those  of 
nature,  there  is  a  twofold  common  character :  1st,  The  relation 
of  the  parts  to  the  whole ;  2d,  The  relation  of  the  whole  to 
the  external  medium,  or  the  objects  on  which  it  behoves  to 


THE   INDUSTRY  OF  MAN   AND   THE   INDUSTRY   OF  NATURE.    109 

act.  In  a  machine,  as  well  as  in  a  living  being,  each  of 
the  parts  has  meaning  and  value  only  by  its  relation  to  the 
general  idea  of  the  machine.  There  is  no  part  which  has  not 
its  reason  in  the  whole.  As  Aristotle  has  said,  the  whole  is 
anterior  to  the  part ;  and  Kant  himself  has  recognised  in  this 
respect  the  identity  of  nature  and  art.  Now,  is  not  that  the 
essential  and  distinctive  character  of  finality  ?  It  is  not,  then, 
the  more  or  less  of  internal  activity  or  of  spontaneity  that  is 
here  in  question ;  it  is  that  pre-established  harmony  of  the  •■ 
part  and  the  whole,  which,  common  at  once  to  the  works  of 
art  and  to  the  works  of  nature,  confers  upon  them,  on  the  ' 
one  as  on  the  other,  an  incontestable  character  of  finality.  / 
Besides,  they  both  suppose  external  conditions  which  are 
prearranged  for  them.  If  we  invoke  vitality,'^  with  the 
■Germans,  in  order  to  explain  the  phenomena  of  life,  it  may  be 
found  that  such  a  cause  greatly  resembles  the  occult  qualities 
of  the  Middle  Ages ;  but  whatever  may  be  the  worth  of  this 
<3ause  otherwise,  it  does  not  exclude  the  existence  of  mechan- 
ism in  the  living  organism,  and  does  not  destroy  any  of  the 
analogies  we  have  instanced  above.  Doubtless  there  is  in  the 
€ye  something  vital,  without  which  it  would  not  exercise  its 
functions :  an  artificial  eye  could  not  see ;  but,  vital  or  not, 
the  eye  is  none  the  less  an  optical  instrument,  a  camera 
obscura,  exactly  constructed  according  to  the  laws  of  physics  ; 
the  crystalline,  all  living  as  it  is,  is  none  the  less  a  lens ;  and 
all  our  organs,  without  ceasing  for  a  moment  to  be  living,  are 
none  the  less  at  the  same  time  mechanical  agents  strictly 
appropriated.  Be  it  vitality;  still  it  is  the  case  that  this 
vitality  acts  like  a  clever  artist,  that  it  prearranges  all  the 

1  '  There  is  a  wonderful  agreement  between  the  functions  of  the  different 
organs.  .  .  .  But  when  we  understand  the  essence  of  the  organism,  we  find 
that  this  industrious  harmony  is  a  necessary  sequel  of  vitality.'  — Hegel,  Phil, 
de  la  nature,  §  245.  —  EncydopcBdie  des  sciences  physiques,  p.  350.  It  will  be 
noticed,  besides,  that  it  is  not  in  order  to  deny  the  final  cause  that  Hegel  here 
introduces  the  vital  principle,  but  in  order  to  place  within,  and  not  without  the 
living  being,  the  cause  of  the  finality  therein  manifested  —  a  question  wliich 
we  do  not  here  discuss.  (See  below,  on  Immanent  Finality,  the  second  chapter 
of  Book  ii.) 


110  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  III. 

parts  conformably  to  the  idea  of  the  whole  —  in  other  words, 
that  it  obeys  the  law  of  finality,  which  is  for  us  at  present 
the  only  subject  of  discussion. 

By  a  course  of  analogical  inductions,  we  have  tried  to 
prove  :  1st,  That  our  fellow-men  act  for  an  end  ;  2d,  That  the 
animals,  when  they  obey  intelligence  and  feeling,  act  for  an 
end ;  3d,  That  instinctive  actions  are  directed  towards  an  end ; 
4th,  That  the  functions  themselves,  so  analogous  to  the  in- 
stincts, are  equally  directed  towards  an  end.  What  remains 
to  be  proved  in  order  to  exhaust  the  series  of  our  inductions 
is,  that  not  only  the  operations  of  the  organs,  but  even  the 
formation  of  these  organs,  again  supposes  the  idea  of  an  end. 
Now,  to  achieve  this  last  step,  we  need  only  call  atten- 
tion to  the  identity  of  function  with  the  creative  act  of  the 
organism.  It  may  be  said  of  the  animal  what  has  been  said 
of  the  world,  that  conservation  is  only  continued  creation. 
In  effect,  what  difference  is  there  between  the  nutritive 
act  whereby  the  animal  continually  repairs  the  waste  of  its 
organs,  and  the  creative  act  whereby  it  produces  these  organs 
themselves?  Between  these  two  acts,  and  uniting  them  to 
each  other,  is  found  the  phenomenon  of  regeneration  in 
mutilated  organs.  Every  one  knows  the  fact  of  the  regenera- 
tion of  nerves,  the  reproduction  of  the  feet  of  the  sala- 
mander, and  the  still  more  astonishing  reproduction  of  the 
half  of  the  body  in  the  planaria.  What  are  these  phenomena 
but  the  development  of  that  repairing  force  which  is  mani- 
fested in  nutrition,  which  during  a  part  of  life  is  at  the  same 
time  an  extensive  force,  for  the  animal  grows  in  proportion 
as  it  repairs  itself?  Now,  between  the  phenomena  of  regen- 
eration ajid  the  phenomena  of  formation,  is  there  anything 
but  a  difference  of  degree  ?  The  force  which  for  the  first 
time  produced  the  foot  of  the  salamander,  must  have  acted 
in  the  same  manner  as  the  same  force  when  it  reproduced  that 
same  amputated  foot.  And,  in  fine,  the  nutritive  function 
itself  is  only  this  same  force  of  reparation  applied  to  pre- 
serve the  organ  once  formed.     In  fine,  if  conservation   is 


THE    INDUSTRY  OF  MAN  AND   THE   INDUSTRY  OF  NATXJRE.    Ill 

here  oiil}'  a  continued  creation,  we  may  say  that  all  the  forms 
which  the  act  of  conservation  takes  in  the  animal  —  function, 
instinct,  reflecting  industry,  science,  and  art  —  are  only  de- 
grees of  one  and  the  same  force ;  and  consequently,  such  as- 
it  shows  itself  in  its  most  elevated  state,  that  is,  proportion- 
ing means  to  an  end,  such  is  it  in  its  origin.  Finality  is- 
therefore  its  essence,  its  true  definition. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  pass  beyond  humanity  in  order  to 
find  all  the  degrees  thi-ough  which  this  force  passes  before- 
arriving  at  its  highest  degree,  which  is  voluntary  and  reflect- 
ing finality.  In  the  voluntary  act  —  for  instance,  the  act  of 
an  engineer  who  invents  a  machine  —  we  have  the  conscious- 
ness  both  of  the  end  to  be  reached  and  of  the  means  whi<;h. 
conduct  to  it ;  in  the  act  of  passion,  like  that  of  the  soldier 
who  mounts  to  the  assault,  we  have  consciousness  of  the  end 
without  consciousness  of  the  means ;  in  the  instinctive  act, 
like  that  of  the  child  pressing  the  breast  of  the  nurse,  there- 
may  be  consciousness  of  the  act,  that  is,  pleasure,  but  there 
is  consciousness  neither  of  the  end  nor  of  the  means.  In  the 
organic  act,  like  the  nutritive  act,  it  is  the  same ;  but  there 
is,  none  the  less,  co-ordination  towards  an  end:  in  repro- 
duction the  mother  works,  without  knowing  what  she  is- 
doing,  at  an  image  like  the  parents.  Thus  ascending  from 
function  to  function,  from  art  to  art,  we  always  find  ourselves 
guided  by  the  thread  of  analogy  to  the  first  formation  of 
organized  beings,  which  (in  whatever  fashion  we  may  imagine 
it)  can  only  have  been,  like  the  actual  formation,  a  certain 
choice  of  means  adapted  to  an  end. 

Thus,  then,  human  industry  is  not  an  exceptional  phenome- 
non in  nature ;  it  is  the  last  degree  of  a  series  of  analogous 
phenomena,  which  one  after  another,  with  a  growing  and 
decreasing  consciousness,  present  themselves  to  us  with  a 
character  essentially  identical,  namely,  the  co-ordination  of 
the  present  to  the  future.  This  character,  grasped  by  our 
consciousness,  attests  to  us  the  existence  of  finality :  finality, 
therefore,  co-exists  everywhere  with  it. 


112  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  III. 

A  single  point  is  left  us  to  examine  to  complete  the 
demonstration.  Our  whole  reasoning  rests  upon  analogy. 
But  what  is  the  logical  worth  of  reasoning  by  analogy  ?  We 
have  not  here  to  examine  in  an  abstract  and  general  manner 
the  theory  of  analogy.  It  will  suffice  us  to  find  in  experience 
a  striking  and  decisive  proof  of  the  force  of  this  mode  of 
reasoning.  This  proof  we  find  in  the  certitude  which  the 
belief  in  the  intelligence  of  our  fellow-men  gives  us.  On  the 
one  hand,  it  is  certain  that  it  is  by  an  analogical  reasoning 
that  we  affirm  intelligence  in  our  fellow-men;  on  the  other 
hand,  it  is  undeniable  that  this  belief  equals  in  certitude  any 
other  of  our  affirmations.  Analogy  may  therefore  have  a 
force  of  proof  equal  to  that  which  any  of  our  faculties  of 
knowledge  can  give. 

When  we  pass  from  ourselves  to  our  fellow-men  by  way  of 
induction,  it  is  certain  that  this  induction  is  only  an  ana- 
logical induction,  for,  however  like  us  other  men  may  be,  they 
yet  differ  sufficiently  to  constitute  each  one  a  different  indi- 
viduality ;  and  what  renders  still  more  remarkable  the  incom- 
parable certitude  of  this  induction  is,  that  a  single  case  suffices 
lis  to  conclude  regarding  all :  ah  uno  disce  omnes.  We  only 
know  ourselves ;  we  therefore  only  know  a  single  individual, 
and  we  conclude  without  exception  regarding  all  the  individ- 
uals like  us.  Thus,  before  affirming  that  all  the  individuals 
of  a  species  have  this  or  that  organization,  anatomists  dissect 
a  very  great  number  of  them ;  here,  on  the  other  hand,  we 
can  never  directly  observe  more  than  a  single  being,  and  tha^". 
alone  suffices. ^  This,  then,  is  a  conclusion  obtained  by  wav 
of  analogy,  equal  in  certitude  to  our  most  warranted  affirma- 
tions. It  is  even  a  very  remarkable  fact  that  no  sceptic  to 
my  knowledge  has  ever  explicitly  called  in  question  the  intel- 


1  If  it  be  said  that  this  combination  is  not  a  reasoning  by  analogy,  but  a 
veritable  induction,  since  we  go  from  the  same  to  the  same,  I  reply  that  other 
men  are  not  ijrecisely  the  same  beings  as  I,  and  that  the  distinctive  characters 
of  the  individuality  are  so  salient  in  humanity  that  they  constitute  truly  notable 
differences  :  likeness  prevails,  but  it  is  mixed  with  many  differences.  Besides, 
t^  conclude  froir.  the  likeness  of  apparent  qualities  to  the  likeness  of  hidden 


THE  INDUSTRY  OF  MAN  AND  THE  INDUSTRY  OF  NATURE.  113 

ft 

ligence  of  other  men.  If  Descartes  could  say  that  there  is 
at  least  one  certain  truth,  —  namely,  I  think,  therefore  I  exist, 
—  we  may  likewise  say  that  it  is  about  as  certain  that  other 
men  think  and  that  they  exist. 

Now,  if  we  ask  ourselves  why  we  suppose  that  other  men 
think,  we  shall  see  that  it  is  in  virtue  of  the  principle  of  final 
causes.  In  effect,  what  is  it  that  experience  shows  us  in  the 
actions  of  other  men,  but  a  certain  number  of  phenomena  co- 
ordinated in  a  certain  manner,  and  bound  not  only  together, 
but  also  to  a  future  phenomenon  more  or  less  remote  ?  Thus, 
when  we  see  a  man  prepare  his  food  by  means  of  fire,  we 
know  that  this  assemblage  of  phenomena  is  connected  with 
the  act  of  taking  food ;  when  we  see  a  painter  drawing  lines 
on  a  canvas,  we  know  that  these  apparently  arbitrary  acts 
are  connected  with  the  execution  of  a  picture ;  when  we  see 
a  deaf  mute  making  signs  which  we  do  not  understand,  we 
believe  that  these  gestures  are  connected  with  a  final  effect, 
which  is  to  be  understood  by  him  to  whom  he  makes  them ; 
in  fine,  when  men  speak,  we  see  that  the  articulations  of 
which  a  plirase  is  composed  are  co-ordinated  to  each  other  so 
as  to  produce  a  certain  final  effect,  which  is  to  awaken  in  us 
a  certain  thought  and  sentiment.  Now  we  cannot  see  such 
-co-ordinations,  whether  actual  or  future,  without  supposing  a 
special  cause  for  them ;  and  as  we  know  by  internal  experience 
that  with  ourselves  such  co-ordinations  only  take  place  under 
the  condition  that  the  final  effect  is  previously  represented  in 
our  consciousness,  we  suppose  the  same  thing  in  the  case  of 
other  men ;  in  a  word,  we  suppose  for  them  the  consciousness 
of  an  end,  a  consciousness  reflecting  more  or  less,  according  as 
the  circumstances  more  or  less  resemble  those  that  accompany 
in  ourselves  the  reflecting  consciousness. 


qualities  is  precisely  what  is  called  analogy.  In  fine,  when  we  hear  a  strange 
tongue  spoken,  or  find  characters  of  unknown  writing,  we  do  not  the  less  cer- 
tainly conclude  from  them  the  intelligence  of  the  men  who  have  spoken  those 
languages  or  traced  those  characters.  Now,  here  it  is  evident  that  the  reason- 
ing is  analogical,  since  the  data  are  neither  languages  nor  signs  that  we  know 
and  use  ^urselves,  but  only  analogous  signs. 


114  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  III. 

Thus,  when  we  affirm  the  intelligence  of  other  men,  we 
affirm  a  truth  of  indisputable  certitude ;  and  yet  we  only 
affirm  it  on  the  ground  of  analogy,  and  of  analogy  guided 
by  the  principle  of  final  causes. 

When  we  pass  from  our  personal  intelligence  to  that  of 
other  men,  it  might  still  be  said,  strictly  speaking,  that  that 
is  a  veritable  induction,  and  not  an  analogy,  the  limit  between 
these  two  processes  being  besides  vague  and  undecided  ;  but 
it  is  not  the  same  when  we  pass  from  man  to  the  animals. 
Here  the  reasoning  is  incontestably  analogical,  and  yet  it 
gives  results  which  are  still  of  a  sufficient  certitude  to  leave 
no  doubt  in  practice.  It  is  thus  that  men  are  entirely  per- 
suaded that  there  is  feeling  in  animals,  and  even  in  a  certain 
measure  intelligence ;  and  it  is  those  who  know  them  best 
who  have  the  firmest  conviction  on  this  point.  The  paradox 
of  Descartes  on  animal  machines  has  not  found  acceptance 
with  any  philosophical  school,  and  those  that  reject  it  most 
of  all  are  precisely  those  most  opposed  to  final  causes.  Now 
it  is  only  by  analogy  that  we  pass  from  man  to  the  animal ; 
analogy  is  therefore  capable  of  giving  a  very  high  degree  of 
certainty  and  of  conviction. 

But  if  analogy  has  guided  us  hitherto  with  a  degree  of 
exactness  which  no  one  disputes,  why  should  it  cease  to 
have  the  same  demonstrative  force  when  we  pass  to  kindred 
phenomena,  very  like  those  that  have  authorized  our  first 
inductions  —  namely,  from  intelligence  to  instinct,  from  in- 
stinct to  function,  from  function  to  the  very  construction  of 
the  living  machine  ?  We  need  not  go  back  upon  the  series 
of  phenomena  we  have  set  forth  above.  It  is  enough  for  us 
to  have  shown  the  certainty  of  the  analogical  method  in  the 
first  two  degrees  of  this  descending  induction ;  the  same 
certainty  must  apply  to  the  cases  following. 

In  a  word,  if,  notwithstanding  the  divergence  of  the  forms, 
we  are  warranted  to  say  that  the  polyp  is  an  animal  as  well 
as  man,  whatever  be  the  abyss  that  separates  the  one  from 


THE  INDUSTRY  OF  MAN  AND  THE  INDUSTRY  OF  NATURE.   115 

the  other,  we  are  not  less  warranted  to  say  that  the  crystalline, 
a  natural  lens,  is  a  work  of  art,  by  the  same  right  as  the 
artificial  lens  made  by  the  optician.  Be  this  art  conscious  or 
unconscious,  external  or  internal,  it  matters  little ;  the  same 
object,  identically  the  same,  cannot  be  here  a  machine,  there 
a  freak  of  nature.  And  if  we  admit,  what  can  hardly  be 
denied,  that  it  is  a  machine,  we  admit  at  the  same  time  that 
it  is  a  means  adapted  to  an  end ;  we  admit  the  existence  of 
the  final  cause. 

We  have  tried  to  reproduce  with  some  exactitude  the  argu- 
ment of  common  sense,  which  consists  in  inferring  from  the 
industry  of  man  the  industry  of  nature.  This  argument  can 
be  reduced  to  this  well-known  principle :  the  same  effects  are 
explained  by  the  same  causes;  eorundem  effectuum  ecedem 
sunt  causce.  Experience  shows  us  in  a  certain  and  precise 
case  the  existence  of  a  real  cause,  namely,  the  final  cause ;  in 
all  similar  or  analogous  cases  we  infer  the  same  cause,  at 
least  so  far  as  the  differences  noticed  between  the  facts  do 
not  warrant  us  to  call  in  question  the  existence  of  such  a 
cause.  Now  there  is  not  any  difference  between  the  facts 
noticed  which  warrants  this  doubt,  for  the  only  two  that  we 
have  noticed  is  that  human  art  is  on  the  one  hand  conscious, 
and  on  the  other  external  to  its  products,  while  the  art  of 
nature  is  unconscious,  and  within  its  products.  But  this 
second  difference  rather  implies  a  superiority  than  an  inferior- 
ity, it  implies  more  perfect  machines  and  a  more  profound 
art ;  and  as  to  the  first,  it  would  only  be  an  argument  against 
the  final  cause  if  we  affirmed  that  the  art  of  nature  has  not 
an  intelligent  cause,  which  we  do  not  do.  It  would  only, 
therefore,  avail  against  those  who  admit  an  instinctive  finality 
at  the  origin  of  things,  and  not  against  us,  wh®  by  no  means 
take  in  hand  to  defend  this  hypothesis,  and  who  have  only 
left  it  provisionally  in  suspense  by  a  simple  concession,  and 
in  order  not  to  complicate  the  question. 

Thus  the  two  differences  which  exist  between  human  art 


116  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  III. 

and  the  art  of  nature  do  not  weaken  in  any  way  the  force  of 
the  principle  laid  down,  namely,  that  the  same  effects  are 
explained  by  the  same  causes.  The  final  cause  is  therefore  a 
real  cause,  attested  by  internal  experience,  and  residing  objec- 
tively in  all  organized  productions,  as  well  as  in  the  works  of 
human  art.  a 


CHAPTER  IV. 

ORGAN  AND  FXJNCTION. 

THE  whole  series  of  preceding  inductions  rests  on  the  pre. 
sumed  analogy  of  the  industry  of  nature  and  human 
industry.  Is  this  analogy,  justified  by  theory,  justified  also 
by  science  ?  This  the  course  of  these  studies  now  leads  us  to- 
examine. 

The  ancient  physiology,  following  the  footsteps  of  Galen, 
was  chiefly  occupied  with  what  was  called  the  use  of  partSy 
that  is,  the  appropriation  of  organs  to  functions.  Impressed 
above  all  by  the  admirable  agreement  manifest  between  the 
form  of  a  given  organ  —  for  instance,  the  heart  —  and  its  use, 
it  followed  this  preconceived  idea,  that  in  every  organ  the 
structure  reveals  the  use,  just  as  in  human  industry  the 
structure  of  a  machine  can  a  priori  reveal  its  destination.  In 
this  view,  anatomy  was  the  true  key  of  physiology,  and  the 
latter  was  only  its  handmaid.  By  means  of  the  scalpel,  the 
true  form  and  structure  of  organs  were  discovered,  and  from 
thence  the  uses  of  these  organs  were  deduced.  Sometimes 
this  method  led  to  great  discoveries,  as  happened  to  Harvey 
in  resfard  to  the  circulation  of  the  blood.  At  other  times  it 
led  to  error.  Most  frequently  men  thought  they  divined  what 
in  reality  they  did  nothing  but  observe.  But  we  may  con- 
ceive what  a  considerable  part  the  principle  of  final  causes 
played  in  this  way  of  regarding  physiology. 

If  we  are  to  believe  the  present  masters  of  physiological 
science,  this  method,  which  subordinates  physiology  to  anat- 
omy, which  deduces  the  uses  and  functions  of  structure  from 
the  organs,  and  which  is  consequently  more  or  less  inspired  by 
the  principle  of  final  causes,  is  exhausted ;  it  has  become  bar- 

117 


118  BOOK  I.   CHAPTER  IV. 

reu,  and  a  more  philosophic  and  profounder  method  has  had 
to  be  substituted  for  it.  It  is  said  to  be  contrary  to  observa- 
tion to  affirm  that  the  structure  of  an  organ  reveals  its  func- 
tion. Even  did  one  thoroughly  know  the  structure  of  the 
liver,  it  were  impossible  to  infer  the  use  of  it,  or  at  least  one  of 
its  uses,  namely,  the  secretion  of  sugar.  The  structure  of  the 
nerves  would  never  show  that  these  organs  were  destined  to 
transmit  either  motion  or  sensation.  Besides,  the  same  func- 
tions may  be  exercised  by  organs  the  most  diverse  in  struc- 
ture. Respiration,  for  instance,  is  performed  in  one  case  by 
lungs,  in  another  by  gills  ;  among  certain  animals  it  is  effected 
by  the  skin ;  among  plants,  by  the  leaves.  Reciprocally,  the 
same  organs  serve  in  different  animals  to  accomplish  the  most 
diverse  functions.  Thus  the  sound,  which  in  fishes  is  the 
true  analogue  of  the  lungs  of  the  mammalia,  scarcely,  if  at  all, 
•serves  for  respiration,  and  is  only  an  organ  of  support  and 
equilibrium.  In  fine,  in  the  lowest  animals  the  organs  are  in 
no  way  differentiated.  One  and  the  same  homogeneous  and 
■amorphous  structure  virtually  contains  the  aptitude  to  produce 
all  the  vital  functions  —  digestion,  respiration,  reproduction, 
locomotion,  and  so  on. 

From  these  considerations  M.  CI.  Bernard  ^  concludes  that 
the  structure  of  organs  is  only  a  secondary  element  in 
physiology,  and  still  more,  that  the  organ  itself  is  again  only 
a  secondary  object,  and  that  we  must  go  farther,  more  in 
advance,  penetrate  deeper,  in  order  to  discover  the  laws  of 
life.  Organ,  as  well  as  function,  is  only  a  result.  Just  as 
bodies  in  inorganic  nature  are  always  more  or  less  composite 
bodies,  which  chemistry  reduces  to  simple  elements,  so  the 
organs  of  living  beings  ought  to  be  reduced  to  their  elements ; 
and  just  as  chemistry  only  became  a  science  when  it  learned 
thus  to  distinguish  the  simple  from  the  composite,  so  physiol- 
ogy has  only  begun  to  be  a  science  since  it  has  tried  to  reach 
the  elementary  principles  of  the  organs.  This  revolution  was 
effected  by  the  immortal  Bichat.     He  first  conceived  the  idea 

1  C   Bernard,  Les  tissus  vivants. 


ORGAN  AND   FUNCTION.  119 

of  seeking  for  the  elements  of  the  organism,  which  he  calls  the 
tissues.  The  tissues  are  not  organs :  a  single  organ  may  be 
composed  of  several  tissues  ;  a  single  tissue  may  serve  for 
several  organs.  The  tissues  are  endowed  with  elementary 
properties,  which  are  in  them  inherent,  immanent,  and  specific  : 
it  is  no  more  possible  to  deduce  a  priori  the  properties  of  the 
tissues,  than  it  is  possible  to  deduce  those  of  oxygen  ;  observa- 
tion and  experience  can  alone  discover  them.  The  sole  object, 
accordingly,  of  philosophical  physiology  is  to  determine  the 
elementary  properties  of  the  living  tissues.  It  is  for  descrip- 
tive physiology  to  explain  how  the  tissues  are  combined  in 
different  organs  according  to  the  different  species  of  animals, 
and  to  infer  the  functions  from  those  elementary  properties  of 
living  nature  of  which  they  are  only  the  results.  Wherever 
such  a  tissue  occurs,  it  occurs  with  such  a  property  :  muscular 
tissue  will  always  be  endowed  with  the  property  of  con- 
tractility;  nervous  tissue  will  always  be  endowed  with  the  Va'n.  ■  vv, >',  iTi  i 
property  of  transmitting  sensations  and  motions.  However, 
even  the  tissues,  again,  are  not  the  ultimate  elements  of  the 
organism.  Beyond  the  tissue  there  is  the  cell,  which  is  the 
true  organic  element ;  and  thus  the  functions  of  the  organs 
are  found  to  be  nothing  more  than  the  diverse  actions  of  the 
cells  composing  them.  Hence  it  is  evident  that  the  form  and 
structure  of  the  organ,  however  important  it  may  be  from 
the  point  of  view  of  descriptive  physiology,  plays  merely  a 
secondary  part  in  philosophical  or  in  general  physiology. 

Another  physiologist,  M.  Ch.  Robin,^  likewise  puts  forth 
ideas  on  this  matter  analogous  to  those  of  M.  CI.  Bernard,  but 
he  carries  them  much  farther.  The  former,  in  fact,  beyond 
the  physical  explanation,  permits  the  metaphysical  explana- 
tion to  remain,  and  even  more  than  once  calls  attention  to 
the  necessity  of  it ;  the  latter  absolutely  suppresses  all  meta- 
physical explanation,  and  reduces  all  to  the  physical.  He 
especially  contests  the  assimilating  of  the  organism  to  a  ma- 
chine.    This  was  the  idea  which  was  formed  regarding  it  in 

1  Beuue  des  cows  scientlfiques,  Ire  serie,  t.  i. 


120  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  IV. 

the  school  of  Descartes ;  such  was  also  the  definition  given 
of  it  by  a  celebrated  English  physician,  Hunter,  who  said : 
'  The  organism  is  reducible  to  the  idea  of  the  mechanical 
association  of  parts.'  This  theory,  according  to  M.  Robin, 
cannot  be  maintained  in  the  present  state  of  science.  It 
leads,  in  fact,  to  the  admission  that  there  can  be  organism 
without  life.  Thus,  according  to  Hunter,  a  corpse,  so  long 
as  its  elements  are  not  dissociated,  would  be  organized  as 
well  as  a  living  body.  This  is  an  entirely  false  view.  The 
organism  cannot  exist  without  its  essential  properties ;  and  it 
is  the  combination  of  these  properties  in  action  that  is  called 
life.  It  is,  besides,  easy  to  show  that  mechanical  structure  is 
only  one  of  the  consequences  of  the  organism,  but  is  not  the 
organism  itself.  The  case  of  fossils  sufficiently  proves  it,  for 
in  fossils,  form  and  structure  remain  even  when  the  imme- 
diate substances  which  composed  them  have  been  destroyed 
and  replaced,  molecule  by  molecule,  by  fossilization.  There 
remains  no  trace  of  the  very  matter  of  the  animal  or  plant 
which  once  lived,  although  the  structure  be  mathematically 
preserved  to  the  smallest  details.  We  touch  a  being  which 
we  believe  has  lived  —  which  is  still  organized  —  and  we  have 
only  dead  matter  before  our  eyes.  Not  only,  according  to  M. 
Robin,  can  structure  or  mechanical  combination  subsist  with- 
out there  being  any  organism,  but  reciprocally,  the  organism 
can  exist  before  there  is  any  mechanical  arrangement.  He 
sets  up,  in  fact,  a  scale  which  shows  us  the  different  degrees 
of  the  growing  complication  of  organisms.  In  the  lowest 
degree  are  the  anatomical  elements,  above  are  the  tissues, 
then  the  organs,  then  the  systems  of  organs,  and,  finally, 
the  complete  organism.  An  organism  —  for  instance,  an 
animal  of  the  higher  order  —  is  composed  of  different  sj/s- 
tems  of  organs^  whose  acts  are  cdl\edifimctio7is;  these  systems 
are  composed  of  organs,  which,  in  virtue  of  their  conforma- 
tion, have  this  or  that  use  ;  these  organs,  in  their  turn,  are 
composed  of  tissues,  of  which  the  arrangement  is  called  na- 
ture or  structure,  and  which  have  properties ;  these  tissues 


ORGAN  AND   FUNCTION.  121 

are  reducible  to  organic  elements,  called  cells,  which  are 
sometimes  found  with  a  certain  structure,  that  is,  are  com- 
posed of  different  parts,  such  as  the  body  of  the  cell,  the 
kernel,  the  nucleus,  etc.,  and  take  the  name  of  figurative 
organic  elements;  sometimes  they  are  found  without  any 
structure,  as  an  amorphous,  homogeneous  substance,  such 
as,  for  instance,  the  marrow  of  bones,  the  grey  matter  of  the 
brain,  and  so  on. 

According  to  M.  Robin,  that  which  essentially  characterises 
the  organism  is  a  certain  mode  of  molecular  association  be- 
tween the  immediate  principles.^  Whenever  this  mode  of 
molecular  association  exists,  the  organized  substance,  with  or 
without  structure,  homogeneous  or  amorphous,  is  endued  with 
the  essential  properties  of  life.  These  properties  are  five  in 
number,  — nutrition,  growth,  reproduction,  contraction,  inner- 
vation. These  five  vital  or  essential  properties  of  the  living 
being  are  not  found  in  all  living  beings,  but  they  may  be  met 
with  in  any,  independently  of  every  mechanical  structure. 
The  study  of  organs  and  of  their  functions  is,  therefore,  only 
the  study  of  the  different  combinations  of  the  organic  elements 
and  of  their  properties. 

Thus,  yet  once  more,  mechanical  structure  is  not  an  essen- 
tial element  of  the  organism.  If  we  consider  at  present  the 
vital  properties,  and  the  first  of  all,  nutrition,  we  will  see  still 
more  clearly  the  essential  difference  existing  between  the 
organism  and  a  machine.  For  in  a  machine  each  of  the 
molecules  remains  fixed  and  immoveable,  molecularly,  without 
evolution  ;  if  an}^  change  of  this  kind  be  manifested,  it  brings 
about  the  destruction  of  the  mechanism.  But,  on  the  other 
hand,  this  molecular  mutation  is  the  very  condition  of 
existence  of  the  organism.  The  mode  of  molecular  associa- 
tion of  the  immediate  principles  in  the  organism  permits 
the  incessant  renovation  of  the  materials  without  causing 
the  destruction  of  the  organs ;  nay,  more,  what  precisely 
characterises  the  organism  is  the  idea  of  evolution,  of  trans- 
1  Cbeniical  compounds,  almost  exclusively  proper  to  organized  beings. 


122  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  IV. 

formation  and  development  — ideas  which  are  all  incompatible 
and  inconsistent  with  the  conception  of  a  mechanical  structure. 
If  we  sum  up  the  general  sense  of  the  physiological  theories 
which  we  have  just  set  forth,  and  which  appeal  most  to 
correspond  with  the  actual  state  of  science,  it  will  be  seen 
that  not  only  is  physiology  freeing  itself  more  and  more  in  its 
methods  from  the  principle  of  final  causes,  but  also  that  in 
its  doctrines  it  is  tending  to  occupy  itself  less  and  less  with 
the  form  and  structure  of  organs,  and  with  their  mechanical 
adaptation  to  function.  These  would  now  only  be  a  sort  of 
literary  considerations ;  science  now  only  sees  in  organized 
bodies,  in  the  systems  which  compose  these  bodies,  in  the 
organs  which  compose  these  systems,  results  and  complica- 
tions of  certain  simple  elements  of  cells,  the  fundamental 
properties  of  which  are  investigated  as  chemists  study  the 
properties  of  simple  bodies.  The  physiological  problem  is 
therefore  no  longer,  as  in  the  time  of  Galen,  the  use  or  utility 
of  parts,  but  the  mode  of  action  of  each  element,  as  well  as 
the  physical  and  chemical  conditions  which  determine  that 
mode  of  action.  According  to  ancient  ideas,  the  object  which 
the  scientist  pursued  in  his  researches  was  the  animal,  the 
man,  or  the  plant ;  now,  it  is  the  nerve  cell,  the  motor  cell, 
the  glandular  cell,  each  being  viewed  as  endued  with  a 
proper,  individual,  independent  life.  The  animal  is  no  longer 
a  living  being  —  it  is  an  assemblage  of  living  beings ;  it  is  a 
colony :  when  the  animal  dies,  each  element  dies  one  after  the 
other ;  it  is  an  assemblage  of  little  egos,  to  which  some  even 
go  so  far  as  to  attribute  a  sort  of  dim  consciousness,  analogous 
to  the  obscure  perceptions  of  the  Leibnitzian  monads.  Occu- 
pying this  point  of  view,  it  appears  that  the  celebrated 
comparison  of  the  philosophers  between  organs  and  the  instru- 
ments of  human  industry  was  only  an  old  superficial  idea, 
which  is  of  no  use  in  the  present  state  of  science,  and  that 
finality,  so  long  abandoned  in  the  physical  and  chemical 
region,  was  destined  also  to  become  in  physiology  a  secondary 
and  unimportant  phenomenon.     For  if  an  amorphous  sub- 


ORGAN   AND   FUNCTION.  123 

stance  is  capable  of  self-nourisliment,  of  self-reproduction,  of 
self-motion,  —  if,  on  the  other  hand,  as  in  the  nerves,  one  cannot 
discover  any  possible  relation  between  structure  and  function, 
—  what  remains  but  to  prove  that  in  a  given  condition  a  given 
substance  has  the  property  of  self-nourishment,  in  another  the 
property  of  feeling,  just  as  in  chemistry  it  is  proved  that 
oxygen  has  the  property  of  burning,  chloride  the  property  of 
disinfecting,  etc.  ?  In  a  word,  there  now  only  remain  causes  ; 
and  effects,  and  nothing  resembling  means  and  ends,  ^"'  ^  V'/US  ^^-^ 

While  modern  physiology,  following  the  footsteps  of  Bichat,  yj^^vl^^^y^ 
neglects  the  structure  and  use  of  organs  to  consider  physio-  \l/yk,-''' 
logical  elements  and  their  properties,  comparative  anatomy, 
following  Geoffroy  Saint  Hilaire,  in  like  manner  turned  from 
the  forms  of  organs  to  consider  especially  the  anatomical  ele- 
rrtgw^s^  and  their  connections.  Both  seek  the  simple  in  the 
composite.  Both  seek  to  determine  these  simple  elements  by 
relations  of  space  and  of  time,  whether  by  describing  their 
fixed  place  in  the  organism,  or  by  describing  the  consecutive 
phenomena  which  are  constantly  connected  with  them.  We 
recognise  here  the  rigorous  method  of  modern  science,  whose 
endeavour  is  to  disengage  itself  more  and  more  from  every  pre- 
conceived idea,  and  which  confines  itself  to  proving  determi- 
nate relations  between  the  facts  and  their  constant  conditions. 

It  does  not  pertain  to  philosophy  to  contest  with  science 
its  methods  and  principles ;  and,  besides,  it  is  most  true  that 
the  object  of  science  is  to  discover  in  the  complex  facts  of 
nature  the  simple  facts  that  serve  to  compose  it.     In  every 

1  "We  must  distinguish  the  physiological  or  even  anatomical  elements,  recog- 
nised by  modern  histology,  from  what  are  called  anatomical  elements  in  the 
school  of  G.  St.  Hilaire.  The  first  case  concerns  the  ultimate  elements  of 
tissues,  that  is,  the  cells,  spheroidal  molecules  which  are  in  some  sort  the  atoms 
of  the  organized  being.  According  to  G.  St.  Hilaire,  occupying  the  point  of 
view  of  zoology,  the  anatomical  element  is  the  elementary  type  of  a  given 
organ,  as  it  is  fixed  by  its  place  in  the  organism.-  Be  it,  for  instance,  the  fourth 
section  of  the  anterior  member,  it  will  become  a  hand,  a  paw,  a  wing,  or  a  tin, 
according  to  circumstances,  but  is  itself  none  of  these  organs,  and  is  only 
characterised  by  its  connections.  It  is,  therefore,  a  purely  abstract  and  ideal 
element,  while  the  cell  is  a  veritable  element,  concrete  and  evident  to  the  sensea. 
See  in  the  appendix.  Dissertation  IV.  on  G.  St.  Hilaire  and  Final  Causes.  ■ 


124  BOOK  I.   CHAPTER  IV. 

point  of  view,  therefore,  we  cannot  but  encourage  science  in 
the  investigation  of  the  simple  elements  of  the  organized 
machine.  But  the  question  at  issue  is  whether,  because 
science  is  self-interdicted  from  all  investigations  other  than 
those  that  trace  effects  to  their  proximate  causes,  philosophy, 
and  in  general  the  human  mind,  ought  to  limit  themselves  to 
that  research ;  whether  thought  must  be  precluded  from  in- 
vestigating the  meaning  of  the  spectacle  it  has  before  its 
eyes ;  and  in  particular,  Avhat  the  thought  is  that  presided  at 
the  composition  of  organized  beings,  or  at  least  whether 
thought  really  presided  thereat.  It  is  easy  to  show  that  this 
inquiry  is  in  no  way  excluded  by  the  preceding  considerations. 
We  have  only,  in  fact,  to  suppose  that  the  organism  is,  as  we 
think,  a  prepared  work,  arranged  with  art,  and  in  which  the 
means  have  been  prearranged  for  ends.  Even  on  this  hypoth- 
esis it  would  still  be  true  to  say  that  science  ought  to  pen- 
etrate beyond  the  forms  and  uses  of  organs,  to  investigate 
the  elements  of  which  they  are  composed,  and  to  endeavour 
to  determine  their  nature,  whether  from  their  anatomical 
situation  or  from  their  chemical  composition ;  and  it  will  be 
the  duty  of  science  to  show  what  are  the  essential  properties 
inherent  in  these  elements.  The  investigation  of  ends  does 
not,  then,  exclude  that  of  properties,  and  even  supposes  it ; 
and  the  investigation  of  the  mechanical  adaptation  of  organs 
no  more  excludes  the  study  of  their  connections.  If  there  be, 
as  we  believe,  a  thought  in  nature  (whether  conscious  or 
unconscious,  immanent  or  transcendent  thought,  matters 
little  at  present),  that  thought  could  only  manifest  itself  by 
material  means,  linked  according  to  relations  of  space  and 
time ;  and  science  would  have  even  then  no  other  object  than 
to  show  the  connection  of  these  material  means  according  to 
the  laws  of  co-existence  or  succession.  Experiment,  even 
aided  by  calculation,  can  do  no  more,  and  all  that  goes  be- 
yond is  no  longer  positive  science,  but  philosophy.  It  is  no 
longer  science  properly  speaking ;  it  is  thought  and  reflec- 
tion, which  are  quite  different  things.    Doubtless  philosophic 


ORGAN   AND   FUNCTION.  125 

thought  mingles  always  more  or  less  with  science,  especially 
in  the  sphere  of  organized  beings ;  but  science  rightly  strives 
to  disengage  itself  more  and  more  from  it,  and  to  reduce  the 
problem  to  relations  capable  of  being  determined  by  experi- 
ence. It  does  not  follow  from  this  that  thought  ought  to  ab- 
stain from  the  investigation  of  the  meaning  of  the  complex 
things  that  are  before  our  eyes  ;  and  if  it  find  there  something 
analogous  to  itself,  it  should  not  be  prohibited  from  recog- 
nising and  proclaiming  it,  because  science,  in  its  rigorous  and 
legitimate  severity,  prohibits  itself  from  such  considerations. 

Seek,  in  short,  some  means  to  subject  to  experiment  and  to 
calculation  (the  sole  rigorous  methods  of  science)  the  thought 
of  the  universe,  in  case  such  a  thought  presided  over  it. 
When  intelligence  has  for  its  manifestation  signs  analogous 
to  ours,  it  can  evidence  itself  by  such  signs.^  But  a  work  of 
art,  which  by  itself  is  not  intelligent,  and  which  is  only 
the  work  of  an  intelligence  (or  of  something  analogous),  — 
this  work  of  art  has  no  sign,  no  word  to  inform  us  that  it  ia  « 
work  of  art,  and  not  the  simple  result  of  complex  blind  causes. 
A  man  speaks,  and  thereby  we  have  the  means  of  knowing 
that  he  is  a  man  ;  but  an  automaton  does  not  speak,  and  it  can 
only  be  by  analogy,  comparison,  and  inductive  interpretation 
that  we  can  know  that  this  automaton  is  not  a  freak  of  nature. 
So  is  it  with  the  works  of  nature :  if  they  be  the  works  of  a 
foreseeing  thought,  or,  if  3^ou  please,  of  a  latent  and  hidden 
art  analogous  to  instinct,  these  works  of  nature  have  no  means 
of  informing  us  that  they  are  works  of  art,  and  it  can  only 
be  by  comparison  with  our  own  that  we  judge  them  to  be  so. 

Accordingly,  thought  in  the  universe,  supposing  that  it 
manifests  itself  in  some  manner,  could  never  be  recognised 
otherwise  than  in  the  way  in  which  we  claim  to  reach  it,  that 
is,  by  analogical   induction.     It  can  never  be  an  object  of 

1  Berkeley  goes  so  far  as  to  maintain  in  Aleyphron  that  nature  is  in  the 
proper  sense  of  the  word  a  language  of  God  ;  our  sensations  are  the  signs  of 
the  mathematical  properties  of  things  to  which  they  have  no  resemblance. 
But  this  is  a  somewhat  mystical  conception,  which  could  not  be  accepted 
without  many  modifications  and  reservations. 


126  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  IV. 

experiment  and  calculation,  consequently  science  car.  always 
place  it  out  of  account  if  it  please ;  but,  because  it  may 
have  placed  it  out  of  account,  and,  in  place  of  seeking  the 
rational  signification  of  things,  contents  itself  with  showing 
their  physical  connection,  can  it,  without  an  inexplicable 
illusion,  believe  that  it  has  scattered  and  refuted  every 
teleological  supposition  ? 

To  show,  as  it  does,  that  these  apparent  machines  are 
reducible  to  elements  endued  with  certain  properties,  is  by 
no  means  to  prove  that  these  machines  are  not  the  work  of 
an  industry,  or  of  an  art  directed  towards  an  end.  For  that 
industry  (blind  or  not)  on  any  hypothesis  can  only  construct 
machines  by  making  use  of  elements  whose  properties  are 
such  that,  when  combined,  they  produce  the  desired  effects. 
Final  causes  are  not  miracles ;  they  are  not  effects  without 
cause.  It  is,  therefore,  not  astonishing  that,  in  ascending 
from  organs  to  their  elements,  one  finds  the  elementary  prop- 
erties whose  combination  or  distribution  will  produce  those 
complex  effects  which  are  called  animal  functions.  The 
most  subtle  and  learned  art,  even  were  it  the  divine  art,  will 
never  produce  a  whole,  except  by  employing  elements  endued 
with  properties  rendering  possible  that  whole.  But  the 
problem  for  the  thinker  is  to  explain  how  these  elements  can 
have  been  co-ordinated  and  distributed  so  as  to  produce  tha^ 
final  phenomenon  which  we  call  a  plant,  an  animal,  a  man. 

Since  we  maintain  as  legitimate  the  old  comparison  of 
human  art  and  the  industry  of  nature,  let  us  show  by  an 
example  how  the  physiological  theory  of  the  vital  elements 
in  no  way  excludes  the  hypothesis  of  finality.  Suppose  an 
instrument  of  music,  the  use  of  which  we  do  not  know,  and 
which  nothing  tells  us  to  be  the  work  of  human  art,  —  could 
not  one  say  to  those  who  supposed  that  it  is  a  machine 
adapted  to  serve  the  musician's  art,  that  that  is  a  superficial 
and  quite  popular  explanation ;  that  the  form  and  use  of  the 
instrument  mean  little  ;  that  analysis,  on  redvicing  it  to  its 
anatomical  elements,  sees  nothing  in  it  but  a  collection  of 


ORGAN  AND  FUNCTION.  127 

strings,  wood,  ivory,  etc. ;  that  each  of  these  elements  has 
essential  and  immanent  properties ;  the  strings,  for  instance, 
have  those  of  vibration,  and  that  in  their  smallest  parts 
(their  cells)  ;  the  wood  has  the  property  of  resonance ;  the 
keys  in  motion  have  the  property  of  striking,  and  of  deter- 
mining the  sound  by  percussion  ?  What  is  there  wonderful 
in  this,  it  would  be  said — that  this  machine  should  produce 
such  an  effect,  for  example,  as  the  production  of  a  succession 
of  harmonious  sounds,  since  it  is  certain  that  the  elements 
composing  it  have  the  properties  necessary  to  produce  that 
effect  ?  As  to  the  combination  of  these  elements,  it  must  be 
attributed  to  fortunate  circumstances  which  have  brought 
about  this  result,  so  analogous  to  a  preconceived  work. 
Who  does  not  see,  on  the  contrary,  that  in  thus  reducing  the 
complex  whole  to  its  elements  and  their  essential  properties, 
nothing  has  been  proved  against  the  finality  that  resides  in 
the  instrument,  because  it  really  resides  in  it,  and  because 
this  finality  just  requires,  in  order  that  the  whole  may  be  fit 
to  produce  the  desired  effect,  that  the  elements  should  have 
the  properties  they  are  seen  to  have. 

The  error  of  savants  ^  is  in  believing  that  they  have  re- 
moved final  causes  from  nature,  when  they  have  shown  how 
certain  effects  result  from  certain  given  causes ;  the  discovery 
of  efiicient  causes  appears  to  them  a  decisive  argument  against 
final  causes.  According  to  them  we  must  not  say  '  that  the 
bird  has  wings  to  fly,  but  that  it  flies  because  it  has  wings.' 
But  wherein,  I  ask  you,  are  these  two  propositions  contra- 
dictory ?  Supposing  that  the  bird  has  wings  to  fly,  must  not 
its  flight  result  from  the  structure  of  these  wings  ?  Conse- 
quently, because  that  flight  is  a  result,  has  one  the  right  ta 
conclude  that  it  is  not  at  the  same  time  an  end  ?     Would  it 


1  By  this  I  mean  the  savants  who  deny  final  causes,  in  which  there  is  far  from 
being  unanimity  among  them.  When  we  can  quote  authorities  such  as  Cuvier, 
Blainville,  Miiller,  Agassiz,  and  so  many  others,  it  is  permissible  to  say  that 
science  is  very  far  from  proscribing  final  causes.  According  to  M.  Fichte,  the 
celebrated  embryologist  Baer  was  also  very  firmly  decided  for  the  teleologicai 
conception.    (See  Ribot's  Revue  philosophique,  t.  iv.  p.  549.) 


mP\ 


128  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  IV. 

then  be  necessary,  in  order  to  recognise  final  causes,  that  you 
should  see  in  nature  effects  without  cause,  or  effects  dispro- 
portioned  to  their  causes?  Final  causes  are  not  miracles.^ 
In  order  that  there  be  final  cause,  the  first  cause  must  have 
chosen  second  causes  precisely  proper  for  the  willed  effect. 
Consequently,  what  wonder  that  in  studying  these  causes, 

\i//'^^  :  you  should  deduce  mechanically  from  them  the  effects'^  The 
contrary  would  be  impossible  and  absurd.  Thus,  explain  to 
us  as  much  as  you  will,  that,  the  wings  being  given,  the  bird 

,ti  'V^  \  must  fly ;  that  does  not  at  all  prove  that  it  has  not  wings  in 
■order  to  fly ;  for  I  ask  you  in  good  faith,  if  the  author  oi 
nature  wished  that  birds  should  fly,  what  better  could  he  do 
than  give  them  wings? 

Men  of  science  are  in  general  too  much  inclined  to  con- 
found the  doctrine  of  the  final  cause  with  the  hypothesis  of 
a  hidden  force,  acting  without  physical  means  as  a  Deus  ex 
machind.  These  two  hypotheses,  so  far  from  coinciding,  for- 
mally contradict  each  other ;  for  he  who  says  end^  at  the 
same  time  says  means  —  that  is,  a  cause  fit  to  produce  such 
nn  effect.  To  discover  this  cause  is  in  no  way  to  destroy 
the  idea  of  the  end;  it  is,  on  the  contrary,  to  display  the 
•condition  sine  qud  non  of  the  production  of  the  end. 

Final  causes  do  not  exclude,  on  the  contrary,  they  require 
physical  causes ;  reciprocally,  physical  causes  do  not  exclude, 
but  appeal  to  final  causes.  Leibnitz  has  expressed  this  in 
terms  of  remarkable  precision.  '  It  is  good,'  he  says,  '  to  con- 
ciliate those  who  hope  to  explain  mechanically  the  formation 
of  the  first  texture  of  an  animal  and  of  the  entire  mechanism 
of  the  parts,  with  those  who  give  an  account  of  the  same 
structure  by  final  causes.  Both  are  good,  and  the  authors 
who  follow  these  different  ways  ought  not  to  abuse  each  other : 
for  I  see  that  those  who  apply  themselves  to  explain  the 
beauty  of  the  divine  anatomy,  ridicule  those  others  who  be- 
lieve that  a  motion  of  certain  liquids  which  seems  fortuitous 

1  Positivism  ofteu  confounds  final  causes  with  supernatural  interpositions, 
See  in  the  appendix  the  discussion  of  this  preiudice. 


ORGAN   AND   FUNCTION,  129 

can  have  made  so  beautiful  a  variety  of  members,  and  regard 
those  people  as  rash  and  profane.  And  these,  again,  regard 
the  former  as  simple  and  superstitious,  like  those  ancients 
who  regarded  the  natural  philosophers  as  impious  when  they 
maintained  that  it  is  not  Jupiter  who  thunders,  but  some 
matter  found  in  the  clouds.  It  would  be  best  to  conjoin 
both  considerations.^ 

Nothing,  then,  has  been  proved  against  final  causes, 
when  organic  effects  have  been  reduced  to  their  proximate 
causes  and  to  their  determining  conditions.  It  will  be  said, 
for  instance,  that  it  is  not  wonderful  that  the  heart  contracts, 
since  it  is  a  muscle,  and  contractility  is  an  essential  property 
of  muscles.  But  is  it  not  evident  that  if  nature  wished  to 
make  a  heart  that  contracts,  it  behoved  to  employ  for  this  a 
contractile  tissue,  and  would  it  not  be  very  astonishing  were 
it  otherwise  ?  Have  we  thereby  explained  the  skilful  struc- 
ture of  the  heart  and  the  skilful  mechanism  shown  in  it? 
Muscular  contractility  explains  the  contraction  of  the  heart ; 
hut  this  general  property,  which  is  common  to  all  muscles,  does 
not  suffice  to  explain  how  or  why  the  heart  contracts  in  one 
way  rather  than  another,  why  it  has  taken  such  a  form  and 
not  such  another.  'The  peculiarity  presented  by  the  heart," 
says  M.  CI.  Bernard,  'is  that  the  muscular  fibres  are 
arranged  in  it  so  as  to  form  a  sort  of  bag,  within  which  is 
found  the  liquid  blood.  The  contraction  of  these  fibres  causes 
a  diminution  of  the  size  of  this  bag,  and  consequently  an 
expulsion,  at  least  in  part,  of  the  liquid  it  contains.  The 
arrangement  of  the  valves  gives  to  the  expelled  liquid  the 
suitable  direction.'  Now  the  precise  question  which  here 
occupies  the  thinker  is,  how  it  happens  that  nature,  employing 
a  contractile  tissue,  has  given  it  the  suitable  structure  and 
arrangement,  and  how  it  rendered  it  fit  for  the  special 
and  capital  function  of  the  circulation.  The  elementary 
properties  of  the  tissues  are  the  necessary  conditions  of  which 
nature  makes  use  to  solve  the  problem,  but  they  in  no  way 

1  Leibni^^r,,  Discours  de  m^taphysique  (Opuscnlea  ine'dits,  1857),  p.  353. 


\ 


130  BOOK   I.   CHAPTER  IV. 

explain  how  it  has  succeeded  in  solving  it.  Moreover,  M. 
CI.  Bernard  does  not  decline  the  inevitable  comparison  of 
the  organism  with  the  works  of  human  industry,  and  even 
often  recurs  to  it,  as,  for  instance,  when  he  says  :  '  The  heart 
is  essentially  a  living  motor  machine,  a  force-pump,  destined  to 
send  into  all  the  organs  a  liquid  to  nourish  them.  ...  At  all 
degrees  of  the  animal  scale,  the  heart  fulfils  this  function  of 
mechmiical  irrigation.^ 

Moreover,  we  must,  with  the  learned  physiologist  just 
quoted,  distinguish  physiology  and  zoology.  '  For  the  physi- 
ologist, it  is  not  the  animal  that  lives  and  dies,  but  only  the 
organic  materials  that  constitute  it.  Just  as  an  architect,  with 
materials  all  possessing  the  same  physical  properties,  can 
construct  buildings  very  different  from  each  other  in  their  ex- 
ternal forms,  so  also  nature,  with  organic  elements  possessing 
identically  the  same  organic  properties,  has  been  able  to  make 
animals  whose  organs  are  prodigiously  varied.'  In  other 
words,  physiology  studies  the  abstract,  zoology  the  concrete ; 
physiology  considers  the  elements  of  life,  and  zoology  living 
beings  such  as  they  are  realized,  with  their  innumerable  and 
varied  forms.  Now,  who  constructs  these  forms?  Do  the- 
materials  of  themselves  unite  and  coagulate  to  give  birth  to 
apparatus  so  complicated  and  skilful?  CI.  Bernard  here 
again  recurs  to  the  old  comparison  drawn  from  architecture. 

1  No  physiologist  has  more  insisted  on  this  comparison  than  M.  Moleschott, 
one  of  the  chiefs  of  the  new  materialism.  '  Like  the  steam  engine,  the  human 
machine  only  works  if  there  be  introduced  into  it  combustibles,  which,  in  burn- 
ing, produce  calorie,  a  part  of  which  is  converted  into  work.  But  this  work  is 
not  executed  without  resistance,  which  absorbs  a  considerable  part  of  it.  In 
this  respect  the  human  machine  surpasses  all  mechanisms  hitherto  produced  by 
industry.  In  fact,  the  work  of  this  machine  can  rise  to  the  fifth  of  the  mechan- 
ical equivalent  of  the  caloric  .produced,  while  other  machines  hardly  obtain  the 
half  of  these  results. — The  human  body  is  constantly  in  use,  but  Xha  retort, 
which  they  call  the  stomach,  dissolves  and  prepares.  ...  It  pours  them  into  a 
very  long  tube.  .  .  .  The  blood,  by  means  of  a  suction  and  force  pump,  waters 
all  its  suckers,  its  sp7-inf/x,  its  pistons,  its  wheels.  .  .  .  The  combustibles  behove 
io  be  cut  by  scisso7-s,  crushed  by  millstones.  ...  To  these  mechanical  processes 
of  division  fall  to  be  added  the  action  of  eight  or  ten  chemical  re-agents.  ...  A 
chimney  is  not  awanting  to  the  human  machine.  .  .  .  The  circulation  of  tha 
blood  is  a  problem  of  hydraulics.  .  .  .  The  nerves  serve  as  reins  and  spurs.  .  .  .  ' 
etc.    (See  Revue  Scientifique,  2e  partie,  t.  i.  pp.  487,  488.) 


ORGAN   AND   FUNCTION.  131 

*'We  may  compare,'  he  says,  'the  histological  elemenio  to  the 
materials  man  employs  to  raise  a  monument.'  In  this  case 
we  recall,  with  Fenelon,  the  fable  of  Amphion,  whose  lyre 
attracted  the  stones,  and  brought  them  together  so  as  to  form 
of  themselves  the  walls  of  Thebes.  Thus  it  is  that  in  the 
system  of  materialism  organized  atoms  unite  to  form  plants 
and  animals.  No  doubt,  in  order  that  a  house  may  exist,  the 
stones  composing  it  must  have  the  property  of  gravitation ; 
but  does  this  property  explain  how  the  stones  form  a 
house  ? 

Not  only  must  we  distinguish  physiology  and  zoology,  but 
in  physiology  itself  we  have  still  to  distinguish,  according  to 
the  same  author,  descriptive  and  general  physiology.  General 
physiology  investigates  organic  elements  and  their  properties  ; 
descriptive  physiology  must  just  take  the  organs  as  they  are, 
that  is,  as  results  formed  by  the  union  of  organic  elements. 
Now  these  are  results  which  will  always  call  forth  the  wonder 
of  men,  and  which  have  not  been  explained  by  a  reduction  to 
the  elements.  No  doubt,  so  long  as  the  anatomical  or  organic 
elements  are  only  in  the  state  of  elements,  we  do  not  perceive 
in  them  the  secret  of  the  combinations  which  render  them  fit 
to  produce  this  or  that  effect ;  and  it  is  perhaps  the  same  as 
regards  the  tissues.  But  when  the  tissues  are  transformed 
into  organs,  and  the  organs  unite  to  form  living  individuali- 
ties, these  combinations  are  something  else  than  complications. 
They  are  veritable  constructions  ;  and  the  more  complicated 
the  organism,  the  more  it  resembles  skilful  combinations,  the 
products  of  art  and  industry.  The  problem,  therefore,  remains 
quite  entire,  whatever  idea  may  be  formed  of  the  organism, 
whether  it  be  regarded  as  a  mechanical  or  as  a  chemical  com- 
bination. For  in  this  last  case  it  still  remains  to  inquire  how 
this  chemical  combination  succeeds  in  passing  from  that 
amorphous  state  in  which  it  is  said  to  commence,  to  that 
complicated  and  skilfully  adapted  structure  which  is  seen  in 
all  the  degrees  of  the  scale  of  living  beings. 

We  admit  that  the  structure  or  form  of  organs  does  not 


132  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  IV. 

always  reveal  their  functions.  For  instance,  it  has  been  found 
possible  by  exact  labour  to  determine  the  geometrical  form 
of  the  nerve-cells,  composing  as  well  the  sensory  as  the  motoi 
nerves;  but  there  is  no  relation  between  the  shape  of  these 
cells  and  their  functions.  What  relation,  for  instance,  can 
there  be  between  the  triangular  form  and  sensation,  between 
the  quadrangular  form  and  the  motive  influence?  These 
relations  are  not  even  constant ;  because  in  birds,  for  instance, 
they  present  an  arrangement  precisely  the  reverse  :  there  the 
motor  cells  are  triangular,  and  the  sensory  cells  quadrangular. 
Thus  it  appears  that  these  forms  have  really  little  importance, 
and  that  the  function  of  the  structure  is  not  to  be  deduced 
from  them.  That  is  evident ;  but,  on  the  one  hand,  the  geo- 
metric form  ought  not  to  be  confounded  with  the  mechanical 
arrangement,  and  on  the  other,  the  structure  itself  ought  to 
be  distinguished  from  the  fact  of  adaptation. ^  Thus,  what- 
ever be  the  meaning  of  the  shape  of  the  nerve-cells,  though 
it  had  no  relation  to  a  given  function,  it  is  still  the  case  that 
the  nerves  must  be  so  arranged  as  to  put  the  centre  in  com- 
munication with  the  organs,  and  these  with  the  external 
medium.  This  arrangement  of  convergence  and  divergence 
from  the  parts  to  the  centre,  and  from  the  centre  to  the  organs, 
has  an  evident  relation  to  sensation  and  locomotion,  which, 
again,  have  a  not  less  evident  relation  to  the  preservation  of 
the  animal.  Besides,  even  when  the  structure  may  not  have 
any  meaning,  the  fact  of  adaptation  remains  none  the  less. 
For  example,  I  do  not  know  whether  the  structure  of  the 
salivary  and  mammary  glands  has  any  relation  to  the  special 
secretions  produced  by  these  two  kinds  of  organs ;  but  were 
there  nothing  of  the  kind,  the  fact  of  the  salivary  secretion 
is  none  the  loss  in  a  remarkable  relation  of  adaptation  and 
agreement  with  the  nutritive  function ;  and  the  secretion  of 
milk,  which  only  appears  at  the  moment  when  it  is  useful, 

1  In  fact,  there  may  be  chemical,  physical,  and  dyuamical  adaptation,  as  wfeU 
as  mechanical.  For  instance,  the  chemical  combination  which  takes  place  ire 
the  lungs,  so  suited  to  the  support  of  life,  is  as  much  a  phenomenon  of  adapt*> 
tioi.  and  of  finality  as  the  structure  of  the  valves  of  the  heart. 


ORGAN   AND   FUNCTION.  133 

and  by  a  happy  coiucidei  ce  with  the  act  of  parturition,  pre- 
sents no  less  the  most  striking  adaptation,  the  most  startling 
agreement  with  the  telic  result,  which  is  the  preservation  of 
the  offspring. 

We  are  far  from  maintaining  that  life  is  nothing  but  a 
mechanical  aggregate ;  on  the  contrary,  it  is  one  of  our 
principles  that  life  is  superior  to  mechanism.  But  without 
being  itself  a  mechanical  combination,  it  constructs  for  itself 
mechanical  means  of  action,  so  much  the  more  delicate  as  the 
difficulties  are  more  numerous  and  complex.  '  Life,'  says 
M.  CI.  Bernard, '  resides  exclusively  in  the  organic  elements  of 
the  body :  all  the  rest  is  only  mechanism.  The  organs  are 
only  apparatus,  constructed  with  a  view  to  the  preservation  of 
the  elementary  properties.  .  .  .  These  collections  of  organs, 
which  are  called  anatomical  systems,  are  indispensable  to  the 
play  of  the  organism,  but  not  to  life  itself.  They  only 
represent  simple  mechanisms  of  precision,  rendered  necessary 
by  the  complication  of  the  mass  of  anatomical  elements 
which  constitute  the  life  of  an  organism  more  or  less 
superior.  These  systems  are  useful,  but  not  indispensable  to 
the  life  of  the  cells.  In  fact,  cells  are  known  and  observed 
living  absolutely  in  the  external  medium  —  for  instance,  the 
monocellular  animals.  .  .  .  But  as  soon  as  we  pass  from  a 
simple  cell  to  a  composite  organism,  we  perceive  that  a 
nervous  system  and  a  circulatory  system  become  necessary ; 
for  how  else  could  the  elements  placed  in  the  interior,  far 
from  the  external  medium,  receive  impressions  from  it?'^ 

Thus  life  creates  and  distributes  into  systems  the  organs  of 
which  it  has  need,  in  proportion  as  it  becomes  complicated. 
"Who  could  give  any  name  but  that  of  art  and  industry  to 
this  interior  work  of  living  nature  ?  And  what  else  is  this 
work  itself  than  a  progressive  adaptation  ?  The  last  word, 
then,  is  always  the  same,  and  that  word  is  finality. 

Thus  it  signifies  little  to  our  point  of  view,  it  does  not 
even  matter  to  it  in  any  way,  that  the  organism  is  essentially,, 

1  Cl,  Bernard,  Revue  des  cours  scientijiqiies,  13  fe'vrier  1875. 


134  BOOK  I.   CHAPTER  IV.     ^V_V^^^^^^^ 

and  by  definition,  a  mechanical  combination.  It  is  enough 
for  us  to  know  that  in  most  cases,  and  in  proportion  as  it 
becomes  perfect,  the  organized  substance  creates  for  itself 
mechanical  agents  in  order  to  realize  its  functions.  No  doubt 
the  organized  substance  of  which  the  eye,  the  heart,  or  the 
wing  is  composed  is  not  in  itself  a  mechanical  body ;  but 
it  is  capable,  by  a  virtuality  which  is  in  it,  of  forming  for 
itself  instruments  of  action  in  which  the  utmost  mechanical 
skill  is  manifested;  and  this  suffices  for  the  philosophical 
doctrine  of  finality. 

It  is  not  at  random  that  the  organized  substance  passes 
from  that  homogeneous,  amorphous,  indeterminate  first  state, 
which  appears  to  be  its  beginning,  to  that  state  of  skilful 
complication  in  which  it  is  seen  in  the  superior  animals.  It 
is  according  to  a  law,  the  law  of  the  progressive  perfecting 
of  functions  at  the  rate  of  the  progressive  differentiation  of 
the  organs.  This  is  the  law  which  M.  Milne-Edwards  has 
ingeniously  called  the  law  of  the  division  of  labour,^  and  to  the 
high  importance  of  which,  in  the  development  of  animals,  he 
has  rightly  drawn  attention ;  but  in  the  very  expression  of 
this  happy  formula,  who  does  not  see  how  difficult  it  is  for 
science  to  avoid  this  comparison  of  human  labour  and  the 
labour  of  nature,  so  evident  is  it  that  those  two  sorts  of 
labour  are  only  degrees  of  one  and  the  same  thing?  In  the 
first  instance,  in  humanity,  as  in  the  living  organism,  all  the 
wants,  all  the  functions,  are  in  some  sort  confounded  ;  the  di- 
versity of  functions  commences  with  the  diversity  of  organs 
and  of  wants:  the  first  division  of  labour  is  that  which 
nature  has  instituted.  But  in  proportion  as  the  wants  mul- 
tiply, the  actions  and  functions  of  individuals  separate,  and 
the  means  of  performing  these  actions  with  more  conven- 
ience and  utility  for  man  multiply  in  their  turn ;  human 
industry,  therefore,  is  nothing  else  than  the  prolongation  and 
development  of  the  labour  of  nature.     Thus  nature  makes 

1  Introduction  de  zoologie  g^n^rale  (chap,  iii.)-  See  also  Dictionnaire  classiqua 
*rhistoire  naturelle  (1827),  art.    '  Organisation  dea  animaux.' 


ORGAN   AND   FUNCTION.  135 

prehensile  organs,  the  arms  and  the  hands :  industry  lengthens 
them  by  means  of  stones,  sticks,  bags,  jiails,  and  of  all  tools  for 
felling,  digging,  picking,  trenching,  etc.  Nature  creates  organs 
for  the  mechanical  trituration  of  food :  industry  prolongs  them 
by  its  instruments,  which  serve  to  cut,  to  tear,  and  dissolve 
that  food  beforehand,  by  fire,  water,  and  all  sorts  of  salts  ;  and 
thus  the  cuUnary  art  becomes,  as  it  were,  the  succedaneum  of 
the  art  of  digestion.  Nature  gives  us  organs  of  motion 
which  are  themselves  mechanical  marvels  compared  with 
the  rudimentary  organs  of  molluscs  and  zooi:)hytes ;  human 
industry  prolongs  and  multiplies  these  means  of  locomotion 
by  means  of  the  different  motor  machines,  and  of  animals 
employed  as  machines.  Nature  gives  us  protective  organs ; 
we  add  to  them  by  means  of  the  skins  of  animals,  and  by 
all  the  machines  which  serve  to  prepare  them.  Nature,  in 
fine,  gives  us  organs  of  sense :  human  industry  adds  to  them 
by  innumerable  instruments  constructed  after  the  same  prin- 
ciples as  the  organs  themselves,  and  which  are  the  means 
both  of  remedying  the  failure  and  infirmities  of  our  organs, 
of  increasing  their  range,  and  of  perfecting  their  use. 

It  appears  that  the  comparison  that  has  always  been  made 
between  the  industry  of  nature  and  human  industry  is  not  at 
all  superficial  and  metaphorical.  This  comparison  is  founded 
on  the  certain  fact,  demonstrated  by  science,  that  human  in- 
dustry is  only  the  prolongation,  the  continuation,  of  the  in- 
dustry of  nature,  man  doing  intelligently  ^  what  nature  has 
done  till  then  by  instinct.  Reciprocally,  one  can  therefore 
say  that  nature,  in  passing  from  the  rudimentary  state  in  which 
all  organized  matter  at  first  appears,  to  the  highest  degree  of 
the  division  of  physiological  labour,  has  proceeded  exactly  ] 
like  human  art,  inventing  means  more  and  more  complicated 
in  proportion  as  new  difficulties  presented  themselves  for 
solution.     Take  a  gas  —  for  instance,  steam  —  endued  with 

1  Here  again  we  must  make  a  distinction  :  the  first  arts  were  only  discovered 
timpirically,  and  the  first  inventions,  without  being  absolutely  instinctive,  aro 
not  the  result  of  wise  reflection  ;  it  is  only  pretty  late  that  inventions  becoma 
scientific. 


'-Ck 


136  BOOK  I.    CHAPTER  IV. 

an  elastic  property ;  to  utilize  this  property  for  the  perform- 
ance of  any  labour — this  is  the  problem  of  the  steam-engine. 
Or  let  it  be  a  liquid,  called  blood,  and  endued  with  a  certain 
nutritive  and  reparative  property ;  to  utilize  this  property  hy 
finding  means  to  put  this  liquid  in  communication  with  the 
organs  —  such  is  the  problem  of  the  circulatory  system.  In 
both  cases,  nature  and  art  begin  with  the  most  simple  means ; 
in  both  cases,  nature  and  art  rise  to  the  most  skilful,  pro- 
found, and  thoughtful  combinations. 

To  sum  up.  The  doctrine  of  physiological  mechanism  or 
determinism,  taken  in  however  strict  a  sense  (and  science 
could  not  take  it  too  strictly),  does  not  exclude,  and  even 
requires  the  hypothesis  of  thought  and  art  as  having  super- 
intended the  development  of  living  nature.  The  learned 
physiologist,  M.  CI.  Bernard,  whose  ideas  we  have  just  been 
discussing,  far  from  rejecting  these  conclusions,  himself  admits 
them,  and  expresses  them  with  still  more  authority  than  we 
could  have  done,  when  he  recognises  a  directive  and  organ- 
izing idea,^  which  rules  and  controls  what  he  calls  '  the  mor- 
phological evolution '  of  the  animal ;  when  he  admits  a  vital 
design^  which  serves  as  type  and  plan  for  the  formation  and 
development  of  the  organized  being;  when  he  distinguishes 
the  material  conditions  that  are  the  object  of  science,  from 
the  veritable  causes,  entirely  intellectual,  which  belong  to 
metaphysics :  a  profound  distinction,  which  the  author,  with- 
out perhaps  knowing  it,  rediscovers  after  Plato,^  and  which 
is  the  knot  of  the  problem  of  final  causes. 

But  this  theory  of  an  organic  idea,  even  taking  from  it  the 
government  of  particular  phenomena,  and  only  leaving  it 
the  direction  of  the  whole,  has  still  appeared  to  M.  Ch.  Robin 
too  metaphysical  an  idea ;  and  this  savant  has  endeavoured 
to  push  the  mechanical  explanation  to  its  last  consequences- 

1  Cl.  Bernard,  Introduction  a  la  medicine  exp^mentale,  p.  162. 

2  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  1875. 

3  '  TJie  cause  is  oue  thing  ;  that  without  which  the  cause  would  be  no  cause  {«■ 

another '  —  aAAo  fiiv  tC  icn  TO   alrtoi',   oAAo  S"   f  (teivo  avtv  08   to   oitioi'  ovk  av  tlij   aiTtoi'. 

—  Plato,  PhcBdo,  ed.  H.  Etienne,  99. 


ORGAN   AND   FUNCTION.  137 

From  the  views  above  expounded  on  the  organism,  M.  Robin 
has  thought  he  could  derive  a  theory  of  the  adaptation  of 
organs  to  functions  ^  which  would  absolutely  exclude  all  idea 
of  plan,  induction,  and  art,  and  leave  nothing  remaining  but 
the  principle  of  the  conditions  of  existence?  Adaptation,  ac- 
cording to  him,  is  only  one  of  those  general  phenomena  of 
organized  matter  which  one  may  call,  with  Blainville,  result- 
pheriomena.  Of  this  sort  are,  for  instance,  vegetable  or 
animal  calorification,  heredity,  the  conservation  of  species, 
etc.  These  phenomena  are  not  the  acts  of  a  determinate 
and  particular  apparatus  ;  they  are  results  which  sum  up  the 
aggregate  of  the  phenomena  of  living  matter,  and  which 
depend  on  the  totality  of  the  conditions  of  the  organized 
being.  According  to  M.  Robin,  physiology  has  become 
able  exactly  to  determine  the  conditions  of  this  adaptation, 
which  has  thereby  become  a  positive  fact;  and  every  hy- 
pothesis regarding  the  finality  of  the  organs  is  absolutely 
useless. 

He  first  discards  a  doctrine  which  he  calls  '  Aristotelian,' 
which  is  that  of  the  contemporary  German  physiology  of 
Burdach  and  of  Miiller,  and  which  M.  CI.  Bernard  would 
not  repudiate  —  namely,  that  the  egg  or  the  germ  is  the 
organism  potentially.^  This  doctrine  does  not  perceptibly 
differ,  according  to  M.  Robin,  from  that  of  the  preformation  of 
organs,  or  encasement  of  ff&rms,  developed  in  the  18th  century 
by  Bonnet,  and  which  was  already  to  be  found  in  Leibnitz 
and  Malebranche.  According  to  these  philosophers,  the  germ 
already  contained  the  entire  animal  in  miniature,  and  the 
development  could  only  be  growth  and  enlargement.    But  to 

1  De  V appropriation  des  organes  aux  fonctions. 

^  The  Positivist  school  substitutes  for  the  principle  ot  final  causes  that  of  tho 
conditions  of  existence :  no  being  can  subsist  without  the  conditions  that  render 
it  possible  ;  given  these  conditions,  it  will  be  ;  in  their  absence,  it  will  not  be. 
Nothing  simpler  ;  but  who  is  it  that  causes  such  conditions  to  be  given  ? 

8  '  The  germ  is  the  whole  in  potentid  ;  when  it  develops,  the  integral  parts 
appear  in  actu.  In  observing  the  egg  in  hatching,  we  see  appear  before  our 
eyes  that  centralization  of  parts  emanating  from  a  potential  whole.'  —  Miiller, 
Manuel  dephysioL,  trad.  fran9.  t.  i,  proleg.  p.  20. 


138  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  IV. 

say  that  the  egg  is  the  animal  potentially,  is  it  not  almost 
saying  the  same  thing  in  another  form  ?  And  how  could  it 
be  virtually  the  entire  animal,  if  it  did  not  already  contain 
a  certain  preformation  of  it?  But  experience  appears  abso 
lutely  contrary  to  all  these  hypotheses.  The  germ,  seen  by 
the  most  powerful  microscope,  presents  no  appearance  of  a 
formed  organism ;  rather,  in  the  first  stage  of  their  evolution, 
all  germs  are  identical,  and  there  is  no  difference  between 
that  of  man  and  that  of  the  animals  placed  lowest  in  the 
zoological  scale.  In  fine,  on  the  hypothesis  of  preformation,  or 
the  potential  organism,  all  the  organs  ought  to  appear  at  the 
same  time,  while  experience  shows  us  the  organs  forming 
piece  by  piece  by  external  addition,  and  coming  into  being 
one  after  the  other.  Such  is  the  doctrine  of  epigenesis,  adopted 
at  present  by  embryology,  and  which  has  effectually  banished 
that  of  preformation.  If  this  be  so,  it  is  not  the  whole  that 
precedes  the  parts,  but  the  parts  that  precede  the  whole  :  the 
whole,  or  the  organism,  is  not  a  cause,  it  is  only  an  effect. 
What  becomes  of  the  hypothesis  of  Kant,  Cuvier,  Miiller, 
and  Burdach,  who  all  agree  in  supposing  that  in  the  organism 
the  elements  are  commanded,  conditioned,  determined  by 
the  whole  ?  What  becomes  of  the  creative,  directive  idea  of 
M.  CI.  Bernard?  This  hypothesis  is  again  refuted  by  the 
fact  that  the  deviations  of  the  germ,  whence  monstrosities, 
deformities,  and  congenital  maladies  are  produced,  are  almost 
as  numerous  as  the  normal  formations ;  and  according  to  the 
energetic  expression  of  M.  Ch.  Robin,  'the  germ  oscillates 
between  life  and  death.'  In  fine,  monstrosities  themselves 
are  vital  productions,  which  originate,  develop,  and  live 
quite  as  well  as  normal  beings  ;  so  that  if  final  causes  be 
admitted,  it  must  be  admitted  'that  the  germ  potentially 
contains  as  strictly  the  monster  as  the  most  perfect  being.' 

These  are  powerful  considerations,  but  they  are  not  de- 
cisive. To  be  able  to  say,  in  effect,  that  a  house  is  a  work  of 
art,  it  is  in  no  way  necessary  that  the  first  stone,  the  founda- 
tion-stone, be  itself  a  house  in  miniature,  that  the  edifice  be 


ORGAN  AND   FUNCTION,  139 

preformed  in  the  first  of  its  parts.  No  more  is  it  necessary 
that  that  stone  potentially  contain  the  whole  house  —  that  is, 
that  it  be  inhabited  by  a  sort  of  invisible  architect,  who,  from 
this  first  point  d'appui,  should  direct  all  the  rest.  One  may 
therefore  renounce  the  theory  of  preformation  without  at  the 
same  time  renouncing  finality.  Rather  it  appears  that  the 
doctrine  of  preformation  would  be  still  more  favourable  to 
the  exclusion  of  finality.  For,  given  an  organism  in  miniature, 
I  could  easily  comprehend  that  the  growth  and  enlargement 
should  take  place  by  purely  mechanical  laws.  But  what  I  do 
not  comprehend  is  that  a  juxtaposition  or  addition  of  parts, 
which  only  represents  external  relations  between  the  elements, 
should  be  found,  little  by  little,  to  have  produced  a  work 
which  I  would  call  a  work  of  art  if  a  Vaucauson  had  made  it, 
but  which  is  much  more  complicated  and  delicate  than  one  of 
Vaucauson's  automata.  No  doubt,  even  on  the  hypothesis  of 
preformation,  it  would  still  be  necessary  to  explain  the  type 
contained  in  the  germ  ;  but  for  the  same  reason,  it  is  needful 
to  be  able  to  explain  the  type  realized  by  the  entire  organism  ; 
and  whether  the  animal  be  preformed  or  not,  the  problem 
still  remains  the  same.  In  the  hypothesis  of  preformation, 
the  type  appears  formed  all  at  once ;  in  that  of  epigenesis, 
it  is  formed  piece  by  piece.  But  from  a  work  of  art  being 
formed  piece  by  piece,  which  depends  on  the  law  of  time,  — 
the  law  of  all  temporal  and  perishable  things,  —  it  in  no  way 
follows  that  it  is  not  a  work  of  art ;  and  gradual  evolution 
does  not  less  require  a  directing  and  creative  idea  than  the 
sudden  hatching  of  the  whole,  supposing  that  such  a  hatch- 
ing were  possible.  Thus,  to  be  permitted  to  say  with  M.  CI. 
Bernard  that  a  directing  and  creative  idea  governs  the 
organism,  with  Miiller  and  Kant  that  the  whole  commands 
and  conditions  the  parts,  it  is  not  necessary  that  that  idea 
be  designed  beforehand  to  the  bodily  eyes  in  the  primitive 
nucleus  of  the  future  being.  From  my  not  seeing  before- 
hand the  plan  of  the  house,  it  does  not  follow  that  there  is 
none.    In  a  picture  done  by  a  painter,  the  first  lineaments  or 


140  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  IV. 

touches  do  not  contain  the  whole  picture,  and  are  not  its 
preformation ;  and  yet  here  it  is  no  doubt  the  idea  of  the 
whole  that  determines  the  appearance  of  these  first  parts. 
So,  too,  the  idea  may  be  immanent  in  the  entire  organism 
without  being  exclusively  present  in  the  egg  or  the  germ,  as 
if  the  initial  point  of  the  organism  must  have  been  in  this  re- 
spect more  privileged  than  the  other  parts  of  the  living  being. 

As  to  the  difficulty  caused  by  deviations  of  the  germ,  it 
would  only  be  decisive  against  finality  if  the  organism  were 
presented  as  an  absolute  whole,  without  any  relation  to  the  rest 
of  the  universe,  —  as  an  empire  within  an  empire,  the  imperium 
in  imperio  of  Spinoza.  Only  in  this  case  could  it  be  denied 
that  the  actions  and  reactions  of  the  medium  have  brought 
about  deviations  in  the  whole.  The  organism  is  only  a  relative 
whole.  What  proves  it  is  that  it  is  not  self-sufficient,  and  that 
it  is  necessarily  bound  to  an  external  medium ;  consequently 
the  modifications  of  this  medium  cannot  but  act  upon  it ;  and 
if  they  can  act  in  the  course  of  growth,  there  is  no  reason  why 
they  should  not  likewise  act  when  it  is  still  in  the  state  of 
germ.  There  result,  then,  primordial  deviations,  while  the 
alterations  taking  place  later  are  only  secondary;  and  if 
monstrosities  continue  to  develop  as  well  as  normal  beings, 
it  is  because  the  laws  of  organized  matter  continue  their 
action  when  turned  aside  from  their  end,  as  a  stone  thrown, 
and  meeting  an  obstacle,  changes  its  direction  and  yet  pursues 
its  course  in  virtue  of  its  acquired  velocity. 

The  true  problem  for  the  thinker  is  not  that  there  are 
monsters,  but  that  there  are  living  beings ;  just  as  what 
astonishes  me  is  not  that  there  are  madmen,  but  that  all  men 
are  not  born  mad,  the  work  of  constructing  a  thinking  brain 
being  abandoned  to  matter  which  does  not  think.  They  would 
not  live,  it  will  be  said,  were  they  born  mad,  I  will  also 
say :  How  is  it  that  there  are  men,  and  men  who  think  ? 
The  germ  oscillates,  we  are  told,  between  life  and  death.  Let 
it  oscillate  as  much  as  it  will,  still  it  becomes  fixed,  since  the 
species  last;   and  from  oscillation  to  oscillation  nature  has 


ORGAN  AND  FUNCTION.  141 

come  to  create  the  human  machine,  which,  in  its  turn,  creates 
so  many  other  machines.  Can  the  groping  of  a  blind  nature, 
whatever  it  may  do,  go  so  far  ?  Even  in  humanity,  groping 
only  succeeds  in  producing  definite  effects,  and  in  profiting  by 
happy  chances,  on  condition  of  being  guided.  It  is  thus,  for 
example,  that  empiricism,  not  science,  has  in  preceding  ages 
discovered  the  most  of  our  industrial  processes.  That  is  a 
succession  of  happy  chances  if  you  please,  and  not  an  art 
reflected  on  and  systematically  conducted;  but  at  least  it 
needed  some  one  to  remark  these  happy  chances  and  to  repro- 
duce them  at  will.  It  is  stated  that  one  of  the  most  curious 
improvements  of  the  steam-engine  is  due  to  the  thoughtless- 
ness of  a  young  child,  who,  wishing  to  go  to  play,  invented  I 
know  not  what  combination  of  pack-thread,  which  was  after- 
wards made  use  of.  This  was  no  doubt  an  accident :  be  it 
so ;  yet  it  is  evident  that  it  needed  an  intelligence  to  invent 
this  artifice,  and  it  needed  one  also  to  notice  and  to  imitate 
it.  Throw  at  random  into  a  crucible  all  the  elements  of 
which  a  machine  is  composed,  and  let  them  oscillate  indefi- 
nitely '  between  monstrosities  and  death,'  that  is  to  say  be- 
tween useless  forms  and  chaos,  they  will  oscillate  thus  to 
eternity  without  ever  assuming  any  precise  form,  and  with- 
out even  producing  the  appearance  of  a  machine. 

M.  Robin  attempts  from  his  point  of  view  the  explanation 
of  the  phenomenon,  and  appeals  to  the  following  facts :  the 
subdivision  and  individualization  of  the  anatomical  elements 
engendered  by  each  other,  and  their  configuration,  whence  is 
derived  the  situation  they  occupy  beside  each  other ;  the  evo- 
lution to  which  they  are  subjected,  no  organ  being  at  first 
what  it  will  be  later,  hence  the  successive  appearance  of  cells, 
tissues,  organs,  collections  of  organs,  and  systems ;  the  primor- 
dial consubstantiality  of  all  the  vital  properties,  which,  being 
immanent  in  all  organized  matter,  are  found  again  in  all  the 
metamorphoses  of  that  matter ;  the  molecular  renovation  by 
way  of  nutrition,  and  the  action  of  the  internal  or  external 
medium,  whence  by  inevitable  destiny  results  an  accommoda- 


142  BOOK  I.    CHAPTER  IV. 

tion  with  that  double  medium ;  in  fine,  the  contiguity  and 
continuitj-  of  the  living  tissues,  whence  originates  the  mar- 
vellous consensus  which  is  remarked  in  the  normal  organism. 
Such  are  the  principal  causes  that  explain,  according  to  M. 
Robin,  the  adaptation  of  organs  to  functions,  —  causes,  for  the 
rest,  which  we  have  gathered  here  and  there  from  his  work 
for  he  invokes  sometimes  the  one,  sometimes  the  other,  with 
out  co-ordinating  them  in  a  systematic  and  regular  manner.'^ 

All  these  causes  may  be  reduced  to  two  principal :  on  the 
one  hand,  the  individualization  or  specification  of  the  ana- 
tomic elements,  with  distribution  forcibly  determined  by  their 
structure,  which  explains  the  diversity  of  the  organs,  and 
thereby  the  diversity  of  the  functions;  on  the  other  Land, 
the  contiguity  of  the  living  tissues,  whence  originates  the 
consensus  or  harmony  of  the  living  being  in  general  The 
other  causes  are  there  to  increase  the  number ;  some  explain 
nothing,  others  are  only  the  very  thing  to  be  explained.  In 
deed,  the  molecular  or  nutritive  renovation  only  serves  for  pre- 
serving the  organs,  but  does  not  explain  their  formation  and 
adaptation ;  as  the  action  of  the  medium,  internal  or  external, 
only  serves  to  limit  and  circumscribe  the  organic  possibilities, 
and  in  no  way  gives  account  of  the  determinate  combinations. 
As  to  the  evolution  of  the  organs,  which  are  never  at  first 
*  what  they  will  be  later,'  as  to  the  successive  i^ppearance  of 
the  elements,  tissues,  organs,  collections  of  uitgans  and  sys- 
tems, this  is  the  very  thing  that  has  to  be  explained.    We  know 

1  An  analogous  explanation  seems  to  have  beer  given  by  Heckel,  the  chief 
representative  of  transf ormism  in  Germany :  '  The  processes  by  which  these 
three  layers  of  cells  give  birth  to  the  most  complicated  organs  reduce  them- 
selves in  all  to  —  1st,  Segmentations,  that  is,  the  augmentation  of  the  number 
of  cells;  2d,  The  division  of  labour,  or  the  differentiation  of  these  cells;  od. 
The  combination  of  these  cells  differently  developed.  .  .  .  AU  the  final  adap- 
tations ought  to  be  considered  as  the  natural  and  necessary  consequence  of  co- 
operation, of  the  differentiation  and  perfecting  of  the  cells.'  —  Heckel  et  la  doct. 
de  I'e'volution  en  Alleniagne,  par  Le'on  Dnmont,  p.  71.  These  words  signify  at 
bottom  that  adaptation  is  explained  by  adaptation.  For  if  all  these  operations 
are  done  by  causes  purely  physical,  to  which  the  ev'stence  and  preservation 
of  living  beings  are  absolutely  indifferent,  how  is  it  +.^>at  differentiation  causes 
co-operation  ?  Why  should  not  the  cells  oppose  ei-*  ti  othe'/,  and  by  the  con* 
flict  of  their  attributes  render  life  impossible  ? 


ORGAN  AND  FUNCTION.  145 

well  that  the  organism  in  developing  proceeds  from  the  simple 
to  the  compound,  but  how  that  compound,  in  place  of  be- 
coming a  chaos,  is  distributed  into  regular,  co-ordinated,  and 
adapted  systems,  is  precisely  what  we  want  to  know.  In  fine, 
the  consubstantiality  and  the  immanence  of  vital  properties 
(supposing  that  these  words  present  a  clear  sense  to  the  mind) 
would  explain,  if  you  will,  that  all  the  organs  are  endued 
with  life,  and  all  virtually  possess  these  properties,  but  not 
how  they  are  divided  and  combined  into  special  organs.  There 
remain,  then,  I  repeat,  the  two  causes  we  have  mentioned. 

If,  meanwhile,  we  seek  philosophically  to  give  account  to 
ourselves  of  the  nature  of  these  two  causes,  we  shall  see 
that  they  amount  to  saying  that  the  succession  explains  the 
adaptation,  and  the  contiguity  the  harmony.  Ever  to  sub- 
stitute relations  of  space  and  time  for  intelligible  and  har- 
monious relations  is  the  character  of  positive  science,  for  these 
are  the  sole  conditions  that  can  be  determined  by  experiment 
and  calculation.  That  is  a  very  legitimate  work,  but  becomes 
a  usurpation  when  it  pretends  so  to  limit  the  range  of  human 
thought.  It  is  in  the  nature  of  the  human  mind,  endued 
with  sensibility,  only  to  conceive  things  by  representing  them 
to  itself  by  symbols  of  space  and  time.  These  are  the  ma- 
terial conditions  of  thought ;  but  the  question  is,  whether 
thought  is  not  quite  another  thing,  and  whether  its  proper 
object  is  not  precisely  what  is  not  represented  by  space  and 
time. 

Thus  the  learned  anatomist,  whose  ideas  we  are  anaylzing, 
shows  us  the  anatomical  elements  originating  one  from  the 
other  with  such  a  particular  configuration,  and,  as  they  origi- 
nate, grouping  in  a  certain  way  by  reason  of  their  structure. 
From  such  a  structure  there  must  proceed,  he  says,  a  suc- 
cession of  determinate  acts.  Now  it  is  very  true  that  the 
formation  of  an  organ  cannot  be  comprehended  without  the 
successive  appearance  of  special  elements  formed  after  a  cer- 
tain fashion ;  but  definite  does  not  mean  adapted,  and  the 
question  still  remains,  why  these  adapted  acts  are  those  which 


144  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  IV. 

•exist,  and  not  others  —  why,  for  instance,  the  glands  secrete 
liquids  useful  to  the  economy,  and  not  poisons.  The  diffi- 
culty is  not  solved  by  saying  that  if  these  acts  were  not  quite 
compatible  with  life,  the  animal  would  not  live.  For  there  is 
nothing  contradictory  in  the  animal  not  living,  that  is,  in  its 
entire  non-existence ;  the  strange  thing  just  is  that  it  exists. 
The  history  of  embryological  evolution,  then,  however  inter- 
esting, in  no  way  destroys  the  inductions  we  have  made  from 
the  profound  analogies  of  human  art  and  vital  art ;  for  on 
both  sides  there  are  special  elements,  formed  in  a  definite 
manner,  and  rendering  possible  the  production  of  such  and 
such  acts.  In  human  art  some  one  makes  his  choice  between 
possibilities.  Why,  then,  in  the  vital  art  should  the  material 
.substratum  be  freed  from  the  necessity  of  choice,  and  spon- 
taneously find  the  useful  combination  which  is  demanded  by 
the  interest  of  the  whole  ?  In  human  works  the  material 
conditions  are  recognised  as  impotent  to  co-ordinate  them- 
selves in  relation  to  a  precise  effect ;  why  should  the  material 
conditions  in  the  organism  be  endued  with  so  marvellous  a 
privilege  ?  To  say  that,  given  the  elements,  it  is  a  thing  of 
course  that  they  form  into  tissues,  and  that,  given  the  tissues, 
it  is  a  thing  of  course  that  they  form  into  organs,  is  to  say 
that,  given  silk  threads,  they  will  arrange  themselves  into 
pieces  of  silk  stuff,  and  that  when  one  has  a  piece  of  cloth, 
it  is  as  if  one  had  a  coat.  Now,  although  cloth  is  fit  to  form 
a  coat,  and  the  threads  of  the  silkworm  to  form  silk  stuff, 
this  fitness  for  a  determinate  act  is  not  equivalent  to  the 
production  of  the  act,  and  something  more  is  needed.  In 
human  industry  this  motive  cause  is  in  us ;  in  the  industry 
of  nature  we  do  not  see  it,  but  it  is  as  necessary  in  this  case 
as  in  the  other. 

I  will  say  as  much  of  the  explanation  which  consists  in 
accounting  for  the  vital  consensus  by  the  contiguity  of  the 
organic  parts :  this  is  still  to  reduce  an  intellectual  relation 
to  one  external  and  material.  To  say  that  the  harmony  of 
the  living  body  is  explained  because  the  parts  touch,  is  to 


ORGAN    AND    FUNCTION.  145 

say  that  a  coat  is  whole  because  it  has  no  lioles.  The  fit  of 
the  coat  to  the  body,  and  the  correspondence  of  the  parts, 
have  no  relation  to  the  continuity  of  the  piece  of  stuff,  for 
that  continuity  existed  in  the  piece  before  it  was  made  into  a 
garment.  Continuity  can  explain,  if  you  will,  the  sympathy 
of  the  organs  and  the  communication  of  impressions,  but 
not  the  correspondence  and  co-operation.  In  fine,  contiguity 
again  could,  in  strictness,  account  for  the  adaptation  of  neigh- 
bouring parts,  —  for  instance,  the  articulation  of  the  bones, — 
but  not  for  the  common  action  of  remote  parts  both  at  the 
same  and  at  different  times. 

To  sum  up.  There  is  no  contradiction  between  our  prin- 
ciples and  the  most  recent  scientific  conceptions.  No  fact, 
no  law  of  nature  warrants  us  to  eliminate  the  final  cause  from 
the  human  mind.  Science,  so  far  as  it  is  science,  is  mute  on 
this  problem.  It  remains  to  inquire  whether  the  facts  will 
not  admit  of  another  interpretation  than  that  which  we  have 
given. 


r 


CHAPTER  V. 


THE   CONTRARY  FACTS. 


A  FTER  having  set  forth  the  facts  favourable  to  the 
■^-^  doctrine  of  final  causes,  we  must  also  examine  the 
contrary  facts. 

Natural  history  furnishes  most  of  the  reasons  by  which  the 
theory  of  final  causes  is  supported ;  but  it  equally  furnishes 
the  objections.  If  the  generality  of  the  facts  appears  to 
agree  with  the  law,  the  exceptions  are  numerous  enough  ta 
deserve  examination. 

The  theory  rests  on  the  strict  adaptation  of  organ  to  func 
tion.  But  we  have  already  seen  that  this  adaptation,  this 
absolute  correspondence,  fails  in  many  cases.  In  effect,  it 
often  happens  that  the  same  organ  fulfils  several  functions, 
and,  reciprocally,  that  the  same  function  is  accomplished  by 
different  organs. 

'  Numerous  cases  could  be  given  amongst  the  lower  animals- 
of  the  same  organ  performing  at  the  same  time  wholly  distinct 
functions.  Thus  the  alimentary  canal  respires,  digests,  and 
excretes  in  the  larva  of  the  dragon-fly  and  in  the  fish  cobitis.. 
In  the  hydra,  the  animal  may  be  turned  inside  out,  like  a 
glove,  and  the  exterior  surface  will  then  digest  and  the 
stomach  respire.  .  .  .  Again,  in  the  animal  kingdom,  two 
distinct  organs  in  the  same  individual  may  simultaneously 
perform  the  same  function.  To  give  one  instance,  —  there 
are  fish  with  gills  or  branchiae,  that  breathe  the  air  dissolved 
in  the  water  at  the  same  time  that  they  breathe  free  air  in 
their  swim-bladders,  this  latter  organ  being  divided  by  highly 
vascular  partitions,  and  having  a  ductus  pneumaticus  for  the 
supply  of  air.  .  .  .  The  illustration  of  the  swim-bladder  in 

146 


THE   CONTRARY  FACTS.  147 

fishes  is  a  good  one,  because  it  shows  us  clearly  the  highly 
important  fact  that  an  organ  originally  constructed  for  one 
purpose,  namely  flotation,  may  be  converted  into  one  for  a 
widely  different  purpose,  namely  respiration.'  ^ 

'  The  tail,  a  nullity  in  man  and  in  the  anthropomorphoid 
apes,  becomes  prehensile  and  fulfils  the  office  of  a  fifth  hand 
in  the  American  monkeys,  the  sarigua,  and  the  chameleon, 
while  it  serves  as  basis,  support,  nay,  as  a  foot,  to  the  kangaroo 
and  the  jerboa.  An  organ  is  not,  therefore,  characterised  by 
its  use ;  for  the  same  organ  fulfils  the  most  diverse  parts, 
and,  reciprocally,  the  same  function  can  be  fulfilled  by  very 
different  organs.  Thus,  the  nose  and  the  tail  may  fulfil  the 
office  of  the  hand ;  the  latter,  in  its  turn,  becomes  a  wing,  an 
oar,  or  a  fin.  .  .  .  The  ostrich  has  wings  that  could  not 
sustain  it  in  the  air,  but  which  accelerate  its  pace ;  those  of 
the  penguin  are  fins ;  those  of  the  cassowary  and  of  the 
apteryx  of  New  Zealand  are  so  undeveloped  that  they  are  of 
no  use  whatever.'  ^ 

We  willingly  admit  that  there  is  not  an  absolute  and  neces 
sary  correlation  between  organ  and  function.  It  is  by  start- 
ing from  this  false  hypothesis,  says  Milne-Ed wards,^  that  the 
mistake  has  been  made  of  denying  to  certain  animals  certain 
properties,  in  default  of  finding  in  them  the  organs  that  one 
is  accustomed  to  see  correspond  to  these  properties.  For 
instance,  Lamarck  denies  sensation  to  polyps,  infusoria,  and 
worms,  and  intelligence  to  insects,  because  in  none  of  them 
is  found  a  brain,  an  organ  necessary  for  these  two  functions 
in  the  superior  animals.  The  circulation  in  insects  has  also 
been  denied,  in  default  of  finding  veins  and  arteries  in  them  \ 
but  a  profounder  study  of  facts  shows  us  that  the  function 
does  not  always  disappear  with  the  organ  destined  to  accom- 
plish it.  'Nature  arrives  at  the  desired  result  in  several 
ways.' 

1  Darwin,  Origin  of  Species,  5th  ed.,  pp.  227,  228. 

*  Ch.  Martins,  De  Vuniti  organique  {Rev.  des  Deux  Mondes,  16th  June  1862). 

•  Introduction  a  la  zoologie  g€n€rale,  chap.  iv. 


148  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  V. 

But  we  have  seen  ^  that  it  is  not  at  all  by  chance  that 
these  various  adaptations  are  made,  whether  of  a  single  organ 
to  several  functions,  or  of  several  different  organs  to  one  and 
the  same  function.  It  is  in  virtue  of  a  law  or  tendency,  a 
law  perfectly  rational  and  quite  similar  to  that  which  directs 
human  art,  and  which  Milne-Edwards  has  called  the  law  of 
economy.  He  expresses  himself  thus  on  this  subject:  'When 
a  physiological  property  .  .  .  begins  to  be  realized  in  a  series- 
of  animals  more  and  more  perfect,  it  is  at  first  exercised  with 
the  help  of  a  part  that  already  existed  in  the  organism  of  the 
inferior  species,  and  which  is  only  modified  in  its  structure 
to  be  adapted  to  its  special  functions.  Sometimes  it  is,  so  to- 
say,  a  common  fund  that  furnishes  to  the  different  faculties- 
their  first  special  instruments ;  at  other  times  it  is  a  system, 
already  destined  to  special  uses  from  which  the  new  function 
borrows  its  organs  ;  and  it  is  only  after  having  exhausted  the 
resources  of  this  kind  that  the  creative  power  introduces  into 
the  constitution  of  beings  with  organization  still  more  perfect 
a  new  element.'  ^ 

One  can  perfectly  understand,  in  the  light  of  these  facts^ 
how  the  relation  of  organ  and  function  is  not  the  absolute, 
strict  relation  that  one  is  at  first  inclined  to  suppose.  So 
long  as  one  and  the  same  means  may  suffice,  with  certaia 
modifications,  it  is  quite  natural  that  nature  should  employ 
it,  and  no  industry  would  act  otherwise.  On  the  other  hand,, 
when  new  conditions  complicate  the  difficulty  of  a  function,, 
it  is  no  wonder  that  different  means  are  employed  for  one  and 
the  same  act.  Thus,  the  gills  are  in  no  way  the  analogue  of 
the  lungs,  although  they  fulfil  the  same  functions,  just  as 
horses  are  not  the  analogue  of  ships,  although  they  fulfil 
similar  functions.  In  fine,  we  can  thus  understand  even 
organs  without  function.  For  that  certain  pieces  of  tlie 
organism  have  ceased  to  serve  is  no  reason  why  they  should 
ent*  rely  disappear.     The  law  of  economy  is  only  a  particular 

1  See  chap.  iii. 

*  Milne-Edwards,  Introduction  a  la  zoologie  g€n€rale,  chap.  iv. 


THE   CONTRARY  FACTS.  149 

application  of  the  metaphysical  principle  of  the  simplicity  of 
wai/s,  appealed  to  by  Malebranche,  or  of  the  mathematical 
principle  of  the  least  action,  defended  by  Euler  and 
Maupertuis. 

We  have  just  spoken  of  organs  without  function.  This  is 
a  matter  on  which  it  is  important  to  insist,  for  it  is  one  of 
those  that  have  been  most  appealed  to  against  final  causes. 

The  organs  that  are  useless,  whether  really  or  apparently, 
are  of  two  kinds.  Some  are  complete  organs,  entirely  like- 
the  others,  with  this  difference,  that  they  seem  of  no  use. 
The  others  are  incomplete  organs,  incapable  of  acting  from 
their  very  insufficiency,  and  which,  for  this  reason,  are  called 
rudimentary. 

A.  Useless  Organs.  —  The  first  are  few  in  number  in  the- 
present  state  of  science.  Almost  all  known  organs  have- 
their  proper  functions ;  only  a  few  oppose  this  law.  The 
chief  of  these  organs  in  the  higher  animals  is  the  spleen.  It 
seems,  in  effect,  that  this  organ  does  not  play  a  very  impor- 
tant part  in  the  animal  economy,  for  numerous  experiments 
prove  that  it  can  be  extirpated  without  seriously  endanger- 
ing the  life  of  the  animal.  We  must  not,  however,  conclude 
from  this  that  the  spleen  has  no  functions  ;  and  physiologists 
do  not  draw  this  conclusion  from  it,  for  they  are  seeking- 
them,  and  are  not  without  hope  of  finding  them.^  An  organ 
may  be  of  service  without  being  absolutely  necessary  to  life. 
Everything  leads  to  the  belief  that  the  spleen  is  only  a 
secondary  organ  ;  but  the  existence  of  subordinate,  auxiliary, 
or  subsidiary  organs  involves  nothing  contrary  to  the  doc- 
trine of  finality.^ 

Darwin,  on  this  point,  comes  to  our  aid,  for  in  his  system 
it  is  as  necessary  to  prove  the  utility  of  the  smallest  organs 

1  See  Recherches  sur  les  fonctions  de  la  rate,  by  MM.  Malarret  and  Picard 
{Comptes  rendus  de  I'Ac.  de^  Sciences,  21st  Dec.  1874  and  22d  Nov.  1875).  For 
tlie  development,  see  the  lesson  of  M.  Pioard  on  the  functions  of  the  spleen 
{Beinie  scientifique,  15th  Nov.  1879,  p.  4C8). 

2  We  must  also  add  to  the  organs  whose  function  is  not  known,  the  supra- 
renal capsules,  the  thyroid,  and  the  thymus.   In  the  case  of  these  different  organ* 


150  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  V. 

as  in  the  teleologic  system.  '  We  are  much  too  ignorant,'  he 
says,  '  regarding  the  whole  economy  of  any  one  organic  being 
to  say  what  slight  modifications  would  be  of  importance  or 
not.  .  .  .  The  tail  of  the  giraffe,  for  instance,  looks  like  an 
artificially-constructed  fly-flapper,  and  it  seems  at  first  in- 
credible that  it  has  been  adapted  for  its  present  purpose  for 
so  trifling  an  object  as  to  drive  away  flies.  Yet  we  should 
pause  before  being  too  positive  even  in  this  case ;  for  we 
know  that  in  South  America  the  geographical  distribution 
and  existence  of  cattle  and  other  animals  absolutely  depend 
on  their  greater  or  less  power  to  resist  the  attacks  of  insects, 
so  that  individuals  which  could  by  any  means  defend  them- 
selves from  these  small  enemies  might  spread  into  new 
pastures,  and  thus  gain  a  perpetual  advantage  over  rival 
varieties.  It  is  not  that  our  present  great  quadrupeds  are 
actually  destroyed  by  flies,  but  they  are  constantly  harassed 
and  exhausted,  so  that  they  become  more  subject  to  disease, 
•or  less  capable,  in  case  of  dearth,  of  seeking  their  food  and 
■of  escaping  beasts  of  prey.'  ^ 

The  same  is  the  case  with  characteristics  the  most  super- 
iicial  in  appearance — colour,  for  instance.  'When  we  see,' 
«ays  Darwin,  'leaf-eating  insects  affecting  a  green  colour, 
others  which  feed  on  bark  a  dappled  grey,  the  Alpine  ptar- 
migan (snow  partridge)  white  in  winter,  the  red  grouse  the 
colour  of  heather,  and  the  black  landrail  the  colour  of  peat, 
we  must  believe  that  these  particular  shades  are  useful  to 
these  species,  protecting  them  against  certain  dangers.'^ 

If  characteristics  so  superficial  as  colour  may  be  of  great  use 
to  the  animal,  we  need  be  in  no  haste  to  affirm  that  this  or  that 
organ  is  absolutely  useless.  Thus,  in  all  the  preceding  cases 
the  explanation  derived  from  our  ignorance  appeared  suffi- 
ce can  reply,  as  in  that  of  the  spleen,  that  because  we  do  not  know  their  func- 
tion, we  must  not  conclude  that  they  have  none.  As  to  the  last  of  these  organs, 
everything  leads  to  the  belief  that  it  is  a  foetal  organ,  or,  at  least,  relates  to  the 
functions  of  early  infancy,  for  it  usually  disappears  at  the  period  of  puberty. 

1  Darwin,  chap.  vi.  §  6,  pp.  239,  240. 

"^  Tbid.  chap.  iv.  §  2,  p.  97. 


THE   CONTRARY   FACTS.  151 

cient ;  and  we  may  have  recourse  to  it  as  well,  for  example, 
as  astronomers  might,  for  the  apparent  exceptions  that  con- 
tradicted Newton's  law.  The  law  of  the  utility  of  organs 
and  of  their  adaptation  being  verified  in  an  infinite  number 
of  cases,  it  would  be  far  from  reasonable  to  call  it  in  ques- 
tion because  it  failed  in  some  particular  instances,  for  it 
seems  probable  that  it  is  rather  our  science  than  nature  that 
is  at  fault. 

B.  Rudimentary  Organs.  —  However,  if  it  may  be  main- 
tained with  advantage  that  in  many  cases  the  uselessness  of 
organs  is  only  apparent,  and  is  explained  by  our  ignorance, 
it  is  not  so  when  the  organs,  by  their  very  structure,  evi- 
dently manifest  their  own  uselessness.  This  is  the  case  in 
the  organs  called  rudimentary^  the  number  of  which  is  consid- 
erable, and  which  seem  to  be  the  stumbling-stone  of  finality. 

Here  are  examples :  '  The  woman  bears  on  her  bosom  the 
two  breasts  destined  to  nourish  the  new-born  child ;  in  the 
man  the  breasts  are  not  developed,  but  the  two  nipples  exist. 
Many  mammifers,  horses  especially,  can  shake  their  skin,  and 
thus  drive  away  the  flies  that  trouble  them.  There  is  a 
membranous  muscle  attached  to  the  skin  that  shakes  it  thus. 
This  muscle  is  not  awanting  in  man,  —  it  extends  along  the 
neck,  —  but  is  without  use  ;  we  have  not  even  the  power  to 
contract  it  voluntarily,  and  it  is  therefore  useless  as  a  muscle. 
The  mammifers  called  marsupials,  such  as  the  kangaroos,  the 
sariguas,  the  thylacines,  —  in  a  word,  all  the  quadrupeds  of 
Australia,  —  are  furnished  with  a  pouch,  situated  before  the 
abdomen,  where  the  young  live  during  the  period  of  lacta- 
tion :  this  pouch  is  supported  by  two  bones  and  closed  by 
muscles.  Although  placed  at  the  other  extremity  of  the 
scale  of  mammifers,  man  bears,  and  behoved  to  bear,  the 
trace  of  this  arrangement,  which,  with  him,  is  of  no  use. 
The  processes  of  the  pubis  represent  the  marsupial  bones, 
and  the  pyramidal  muscles  those  which  close  the  pouch  oi 
the  kangaroo  and  sarigua.  In  us  they  are  evidently  without 
use.     Am  ther  example :  The  calf  of  the  leg  is  formed  by 


152  BOOK  1.   CHAPTER  V. 

two  powerful  muscles,  called  the  twins,  which  are  inserted  in 
the  heel  by  means  of  the  tendo  AchilUs  ;  by  the  side  of  them 
is  found  another  long,  slender  muscle,  incapable  of  energetic 
action,  called  by  anatomists  the  slender  plantary.  This 
muscle,  having  the  same  attachments  as  the  twins,  produces 
exactly  the  effect  of  a  fine  thread  of  cotton  if  joined  to  a 
thick  ship's  cable.  In  man,  then,  this  muscle  is  useless ;  but 
in  the  cat,  and  other  animals  of  the  same  kind,  the  tiger,  the 
panther,  and  the  leopard,  this  muscle  is  as  strong  as  the 
twins,  and  helps  to  enable  these  animals  to  execute  the  pro- 
digious leaps  which  they  make  to  seize  their  prey.  Useless 
to  man,  this  muscle  is  thus  very  useful  to  the  animals  of 
which  we  speak.' 

'  Here  is  an  example  still  more  significant.  In  the  herbiv- 
orous animals,  the  horse,  the  ox,  and  certain  rodents,  the 
great  intestine  presents  a  vast  fold  in  the  form  of  a  cul-de-sac^ 
called  the  coecum.  In  man  this  fold  does  not  exist,  but  is 
represented  by  a  little  appendix,  which,  from  its  shape  and 
length,  has  been  called  the  vermiform  appendix.  Digested 
food  cannot  penetrate  into  this  narrow  appendix,  which  is 
therefore  useless ;  but  if,  unhappily,  a  hard  body,  such  as  a 
fruit-stone  or  a  fragment  of  bone,  finds  its  way  into  it,  there 
results  at  first  an  inflammation,  then  the  perforation  of  the 
intestinal  canal,  accidents  followed  by  almost  certain  death. 
Thus  we  are  the  bearers  of  an  organ  not  only  without  use, 
but  which  may  become  a  serious  danger.  Indifferent  to 
individuals,  nature  abandons  them  to  all  the  chances  of 
destruction ;  its  solicitude  does  not  extend  beyond  the  spe- 
cies, the  perpetuity  of  which  it  has  otherwise  secured.'  ^ 
Darwin,  again,  mentions  the  following  examples :  — 
'  I  presume  we  may  consider  the  "  bastard-wing  "  of  some 
birds  as  a  digit  in  the  rudimentary  state ;  in  a  great  number 
of  serpents  one  of  the  lobes  of  the  lungs  is  rudimentary,  in 
others  there  exist  rudiments  of  the  pelvis  and  of  the  poste- 
rior members.     We  may  mention  the  teeth  observed  in  the 

1  Ch.  Martins,  De  VuniU  organiqxie  {Rev.  des  Deux  Mondes,  15th  June  1861). 


THE   CONTRARY   FACTS.  153 

foetus  of  whales,  and  those  whose  existence  is  proved  in 
young  calves  before  their  birth,  and  which  even  pierce  the 
gums.  I  have  even  been  assured,  on  weighty  testimony,  that 
rudiments  of  teeth  might  be  discovered  in  the  embryos  of 
certain  birds.  Nothing  seems  simpler  than  that  wings  are 
formed  for  flight,  and  yet  many  insects  have  tlieir  wings  so 
atrophied  that  they  are  incapable  of  acting,  and  not  rarely 
they  are  enclosed  under  sheaths  firmly  fastened  together.'  ^ 

The  facts  we  have  just  mentioned  are  incontestable ;  many 
others  might  probably  be  mentioned.  But  what  is  the  sig- 
nification of  these  facts  ?     That  is  the  question. 

There  are  only  two  known  explanations  of  the  rudimentary 
organs :  either  the  theory  of  the  unity  of  type  of  Geoffroy 
Saint  Hilaire,  or  the  theory  of  the  atrophy  of  the  organs  by 
default  of  habit  of  Lamarck  and  Darwin.  But  neither  of  these 
two  explanations  contradicts  the  theory  of  finality.  We  have 
seen,  in  fact,  that  there  are  two  sorts  of  finality,  —  that  of  use, 
and  that  of  plan.  It  is  by  no  means  implied  in  the  theory 
that  the  second  should  necessarily  be  sacrificed  or  even  sub- 
ordinated to  the  first.  The  type  remaining  the  same,  one  can 
understand  that  nature,  whether  by  amplifying  it,  by  inverting 
it,  or  by  changing  its  proportions,  variousl}^  adapts  it  according 
to  different  circumstances,  and  that  the  organs,  in  these 
circumstances  rendered  useless,  are  now  only  a  souvenir  of 
the  primitive  plan,  —  not  certainly  that  nature  expressly 
creates  useless  organs,  as  an  architect  makes  false  windows 
from  love  of  symmetry,  but,  the  type  being  given,  and  being 
modified  according  to  predetermined  laws,  it  is  not  wonder- 
ful that  some  vestiges  of  it  remain  intractable  to  finality. 

As  regards  the  second  explanation,  it  can  equally  be  recon- 
ciled with  our  doctrine ;  for  if  the  organs  have   ceased  to 


1  Darwin,  chap.  xiii.  §  10,  p.  5;>5.  See  also  for  the  useless  organs,  Buffon 
(art.  Cochon).  He  cites  the  fingers  of  the  pig,  which  are  of  no  use  to  it,  the 
allantois  membrane  in  the  foetus.  He  refutes  the  opinion  of  those  wlio  say  that 
the  number  of  paps  is  proportional  to  the  number  of  the  young.  For  the  rest, 
this  whole  article  is  a  plea  against  final  causes,  which  must  be  abided  to  all 
those  of  the  same  kind. 


154  BOOK  I.   CHAPTER  V. 

serve,  and  have  thereby  been  reduced  to  a  minimum,  which  is 
now  only  the  remains  of  a  previous  state,  it  does  not  follow 
that  they  cannot  have  been  of  use  at  a  former  time,  and 
nothing  conforms  more  to  the  theory  of  finality  than  the 
gradual  disappearance  of  useless  complications. 

C.  Apparent  and  Hurtful  Adaptations}  —  The  uselessness, 
real  or  apparent,  of  organs,  may  thus  be  explained,  —  some- 
times by  our  ignorance,  sometimes  by  laws  of  structure  that 
escape  us.  But  is  it  so  when  we  encounter  in  beings  adapta- 
tions perfectly  distinct,  and  which  yet  serve  for  nothing,  or 
even,  what  is  still  graver,  adaptations  hurtful  to  the  very 
being  furnished  with  them  ?     Here  are  some  examples  :  — 

'A  trailing  palm  tree,  of  the  Malay  Archipelago,  creeps  to 
the  summit  of  the  highest  trees  by  means  of  hooks  admirably 
made,  which  are  arranged  round  the  ends  of  the  branches. 
This  peculiarity  of  organization  is  doubtless  of  the  greatest 
use  to  the  plant ;  but  as  very  similar  hooks  are  observed  in 
several  plants,  which  are  not  at  all  creepers,  those  that  are 
observed  in  this  species  may  have  been  produced  in  virtue  of 
laws  of  growth  as  yet  unknown,  and  have  only  afterwards 
proved  useful  to  its  representatives.' 

'  Does  it  not  seem  quite  natural  that  the  long  feet  of  the 
waders  have  been  given  to  them  to  inhabit  the  marshes,  and 
to  walk  on  islets  of  floating  plants?  Yet  the  moor-hen  is 
almost  as  aquatic  as  the  coot,  and  the  water-rat  almost  as 
terrestrial  as  the  quail  or  the  partridge.  In  such  cases  —  and 
many  others  analogous  could  have  been  found  —  the  habits 
have  changed  without  corresponding  changes  in  the  organism. 
We  may  consider  the  webbed  feet  of  the  Magellan  goose  as 
having  become  rudimentary  in  function  and  not  in  structure  ; 
p,nd  the  deeply  crescent-shaped  membrane  extending  between 
the  four  toes  of  the  frigate-bird  shows  that  that  organ  is  in 
process  of  being  modified.' 

'No  more  striking  and  complete  adaptation  of  structure 
to  habits  could  be  found  than  in  the  woodpecker,  so  well 

1  The  following  facts  are  borrowed  from  Darwin,  chap.  vi. 


THE   CONTRARY   FACTS.  155 

fashioned  for  creeping  around  trees  and  seizing  insects  in  the 
chinks  of  their  bark.  Yet  in  North  America  woodpeckers 
are  found  living  entirely  on  fruits,  and  others,  provided  with 
long  wings,  which  pursue  insects  by  flight.  In  the  plains  of 
La  Plata,  where  not  a  single  tree  grows,  there  lives  a  wood- 
pecker which,  like  the  others,  has  two  toes  before  and  two 
behind,  the  tongue  prolonged  and  pointed,  and  the  tail 
feathers  sharp  and  stiff.  ...  In  fine,  its  beak  is  straight  and 
strong,  and  can  enable  it  to  perforate  wood. 

'  So  with  regard  to  the  water  merle,  the  most  acute  observer 
could  not  suspect,  by  examining  its  body,  its  sub-aquatic 
habits.  Yet  this  abnormal  member  of  the  wholly  terrestrial 
family  of  the  merles  only  feeds  by  diving,  catching  at  the 
stones  with  its  feet,  and  using  its  wings  under  water. 

'  What  more  simple  than  that  the  webbed  feet  of  geese 
and  ducks  have  been  formed  for  swimming  ?  And  yet  there 
are  several  species  of  geese  which  have  webbed  feet  like  the 
others,  but  which  only  go  rarely  or  never  at  all  into  the  water. 

••Can  we  consider  the  sting  of  the  wasp  or  bee  perfect, 
when,  thanks  to  the  barbs  with  which  it  is  armed,  these 
insects  cannot  withdraw  it  from  the  body  of  their  enemy,  so 
that  they  can  only  escape  by  tearing  their  viscera,  thus  inev- 
itably causing  their  own  death  ? 

'Can  we  admire  the  creation  of  thousands  of  drones, 
entirely  useless  to  the  community  of  bees,  and  which,  in  the 
end,  only  seem  to  have  been  born  to  be  fed  by  their  laborious 
but  sterile  sisters  ?  Can  we  admire  the  savage  and  instinctive 
hatred  which  impels  the  queen  bee  to  destroy  the  young 
queens,  her  daughters,  as  soon  as  they  are  born,  or  to  perish 
herself  in  the  combat?  ...  In  fine,  can  we  regard  it  as 
an  ingenious  and  perfect  combination,  that  our  firs  yearly 
elaborate  clouds  of  useless  pollen,  merely  in  order  that  some 
of  its  granules  may  be  borne  at  the  pleasure  of  the  breeze 
upon  the  seeds  which  they  fertilize  ? ' 

It  is  the  same  among  vegetables.  '  It  is  affirmed  that  the 
calyx  and  the  corolla  are  the  protecting  organs  of  the  stamens 


156  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  V. 

and  the  pistil ;  that  they  secure  fecundation,  because  the  rain 
bursts  the  grains  of  pollen  as  far  as  they  escape  from  the 
anther,  and  thus  produces  the  abortion  of  the  fruit  and  grain. 
But,  in  the  first  place,  a  great  number  of  plants  are  deprived 
of  tlie  corolla  and  even  of  the  calyx.  These  envelopes,  when 
they  exist,  do  not  always  effectually  protect  the  stamens  and 
pistil  against  the  rain.  I  may  mention  roses,  lilies,  tulips, 
the  ranunculus,  cistus,  etc.  This  protection  is  really  effica- 
cious only  in  the  campanulas,  where  fecundation  takes  place 
before  the  corolla  expands.  This  genus  only  embraces  useless 
plants,  and,  by  an  antithesis  difficult  to  understand,  the 
vegetables  most  necessary  for  man  —  those  on  which,  so  to  say, 
the  existence  of  the  human  race  depends,  namely,  the  cereals, 
rice,  maize,  the  vine,  the  fruit  trees  —  have  flowers  whose 
stamens  are  in  no  way  protected  against  the  weather.  In 
fine,  the  calyx  and  corolla  can  be  cut  off  before  the  expansion 
of  the  flower,  and  fecundation  still  takes  place.'  ^ 

As  regards  this  third  class  of  facts,  we  will  not  dissemble 
the  embarrassment  one  may  be  in  to  explain  them  from  the 
point  of  view  of  the  theory  of  final  causes,  if  they  are  con- 
sidered separately  and  one  after  the  other.  However,  before 
appealing  to  a  general  theory  which  may  embrace  the  whole 
of  these  facts  and  all  those  preceding,  let  us  invoke  some 
extenuating  considerations.  First,  some  of  them  are  imperfect 
final  causes,  if  you  will,  but  not  none  at  all.  For  instance, 
the  convoluted  horns  of  rams  are  less  favourable  defences  than 
the  straight  horns  of  bulls,  but  they  are  still  defences.  The 
sting   of  the   bee  may  bring  about  its  death  ;2  but  it  is  a 

1  Martins  —  article  quoted. 

■^  Is  this  fact  quite  proved  for  every  case  ?  I  am  assured  that  when  the  hee 
does  not  remove  too  precipitately,  it  can  fly  without  leaving  its  sting  in  the 
wound  of  its  enemy.  In  general,  each  of  the  alleged  facts  would  need  to  be 
separately  studied  by  naturalists.  The  sad  condition  of  the  sloth,  for  instance, 
has  been  much  lamented  ;  but '  it  is  now  known  that  this  sluggish  animal  (the 
sloth),  whose  lot  appeared  to  Buffon  so  deserving  of  compassion,  leads  a  life  no 
more  unhappy  than  the  stag  of  our  forests.  True,  its  limbs  are  not  adapted 
for  running  ;  but  they  serve  conveniently  to  carry  it  over  the  branches  where  it 
finds  its  food,  and  to  support  it  there  as  long  as  is  necessary.'  — Mag.pittoresque, 
1834,  p.  477. 


THE   CONTRARY  FACTS.  157 

defence  for  the  community  ;  in  this  respect  it  is  not  absolutely 
useless.  In  other  eases  the  utility  is  evident,  only  the  circum- 
stances may  have  changed.  The  woodpecker,  we  are  told,  is 
made  to  climb  trees,  and  that  in  a  country  where  there  are  no 
trees.  But  it  is  not  proved  that  there  never  have  been  any 
there.  Here,  then,  there  would  be  an  adaptation  that  had 
become  useless  by  a  change  of  circumstances  —  it  would  not 
be  absolutely  none.  The  corolla  and  calyx  imperfectly  protect 
flowers,  but  still  they  protect  them  in  a  measure,  and  in 
certain  cases  in  a  very  satisfactory  manner.  There  are  certain 
aquatic  animals  that  have  not  webbed  feet :  it  does  not  follow 
that  what  they  lack  is  not  very  useful  to  those  that  have 
them ;  the  others  have  other  means  that  supply  them.  The 
faculty  of  articulation  in  parrots  is  not,  I  admit,  of  much  use 
to  them  ;  yet  it  is  related  to  what  may  be  called  the  domestic 
faculties  of  animals,  which  render  them  fit  to  become  the  com- 
panions of  man ;  and  it  cannot  be  denied  that  one  of  the 
ends  of  nature  (not  the  only  end)  is  to  put  man  in  immediate 
relation  to  certain  species  of  them.  In  fine,  the  abundance  of 
lost  seed  clearly  proves,  if  you  will,  the  indifference  of  nature 
for  the  individual  in  the  lower  species,  but  does  not  prove  that 
it  is  indifferent  to  life  in  general.  'Nature  is  prodigal,'  a 
great  writer  has  said,  'because  it  is  rich,  not  because  it  is 
foolish.! 

However,  instead  of  these  explanations  of  detail,  which 
may  still  leave  many  doubts  in  the  mind,  there  is  a  more 
philosophical  and  general  reply,  embracing  not  only  the 
cases  we  have  mentioned,  but  also  all  analogous  facts,  and 
all  that  can  be  called  the  disorders  of  nature. 

Those  who  maintain  that  there  are  final  causes  in  nature  are 
not  thereby  bound  to  maintain  that  there  are  only  such,  and 
that  they  must  always  and  everywhere  prevail  over  efficient 
causes.  Organized  beings  are  not  the  only  ones  that  exist ; 
and  they  only  exist  on  condition  of  being  co-ordinated  to  cer- 
tain media,  of  submitting  to  certain  forces,  which,  considered 
1  Q.  Sand,  Lettres  sur  la  botanique  (Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  1868). 


158  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  V. 

generally,  are  in  harmony  with  the  destination  of  these  beings, 
but  which  may  sometimes  be  less  favourable  to  them  and  to 
a  certain  extent  contrary.  Not  only  is  nature  in  itself  not 
bound  to  accommodate  itself  in  all  things,  and  for  all  circum- 
stances, to  the  private  convenience  or  utility  of  living  beings, 
but  even  the  structure  of  living  beings  is  not  founded  only 
and  exclusively  on  the  idea  of  finality.  There  are  efficient 
causes  there  too,  acting  conformably  to  their  nature  when 
nothing  useful  to  the  living  being  would  result,  or  even  when 
some  particular  inconvenience  would  result ;  there,  too,  there 
are  general  laws  that  may  accidentally  oppose  what  the  law 
of  finality,  understood  as  an  exclusive  and  absolute  rule, 
I  would  seem  to  require.  The  organization  may  be  considered 
as  a  mean  taken  between  the  interest  of  the  organized  being, 
which  would  have  such  a  structure,  and  the  general  laws  of 
I  causes  and  effects  that  render  that  structure  possible  —  a 
\  result  of  mechanism  and  finality.  But  it  is  impossible  for 
the  spectator  who  cannot  have  witnessed  the  interior  elabora- 
tion of  the  universe  —  he  cannot,  I  say,  absolutely  determine 
wherein  this  result,  this  mean,  must  consist  in  every  particu- 
lar case.  To  follow  thus  the  detail  of  ends  in  their  relation 
to  causes,  we  would  have  had  to  be  in  the  secret  of  creation ; 
there  are  cases  where  we  can,  but  we  cannot  do  so  always. 

There   is  nothing  in  this   conflict   of  final  and   efficient 
causes  that  should  surprise  us,  if  we  reflect  that  nothing  can 
exist,  neither  creature  nor  creator,  without  having  a  deter- 
minate essence,  and  that  the   essence   of  each   thing   only 
allows  of  a  certain  number  of  possible  phenomena.    No  doubt 
the  series  of  phenomena  that  results   from  a   determinate 
essence  is  not  an  iron  chain  that  can  only  be  developed  iji 
I  a  certain  given  direction,  as  we  have  already  said,  and  as  is 
I  proved  by  the  diverse  forms  we  can  give  to  natural  things ; 
'   but  although  a  certain  deviation  is  possible  in  the  develop- 
ment of  phenomena,  that  deviation  is  necessarily  confined 
within  certain  limits,  but  for  which  we  would  have  to  say  that 
from  any  cause  any  phenomenon  may  result.    But  a  cause  that 


THE   CONTRARY  FACTS.  159- 

did  not  by  its  nature  exclude  any  phenomenon,  could  only  be 
an  absolutely  indeterminate  cause  —  that  is  to  say,  a  mere 
chance,  a  mere  nothing ;  it  would  thus  be  no  cause  at  all. 
No  cause  is  a  cause  except  on  condition  of  being  something, 
of  being  a  ttolov  tl  ;  whence  the  consequence  is  inevitable  that 
it  cannot  lend  itself  to  every  possible  combination,  and  that 
every  system  of  ends  must  necessarily  be  co-ordinated  to  the 
necessities  and  limits  which  will  result  from  the  employment 
of  such  efficient  causes.  And  this  consequence  is  not  to  be' 
avoided  by  saying  that  other  causes  —  that  is,  other  means  — 
should  have  been  employed ;  for  what  we  have  said  is  true 
of  all  causes  without  exception.  None  of  them  can  contribute 
to  a  combination  of  ends  but  within  the  limit  of  their  con- 
stitution and  their  essence  ;  all  of  them,  consequently,  might 
always  oppose  some  resistance  to  the  accomplishment  of  this 
or  that  aim ;  and  to  affirm  that  the  means  that  have  been  em- 
ployed are  not  the  best  possible,  —  that  is,  those  best  adapted 
to  the  ends,  —  we  would  need  to  compare  what  is  with  what 
might  have  been,  a  thing  for  us  absolutely  impossible. 

One  is  generally  tempted  to  consider  life  as  a  kind  of 
miracle  subsisting  in  the  midst  of  a  foreign  nature,  by  the 
supernatural  act  of  a  personal  will  that  maintains  it  while  it 
pleases,  and  abandons  it  at  pleasure,  as,  in  an  absolute  gov- 
ernment, the  prince  raises  from  nothing  or  casts  down  to  it 
the  object  of  his  favours.  This  kind  of  anthropomorphism 
has  the  inconvenience  of  accumulating  on  Providence  a 
responsibility  for  every  moment,  and  would  force  us  ta 
attribute  to  a  precise  act  of  foresight  all  accidents  that  dis- 
turb order  in  the  physical  and  the  moral  world.  But,  rela- 
tively to  the  organized  being,  this  conception  is  quite  arbi- 
trary ;  it  is  not  at  all,  according  to  Spinoza's  expression,  an 
imperium  in  imperio :  it  is  bound  in  every  way  to  external 
causes.  All  the  laws  of  the  physical  and  mechanical  world 
are  accomplished  in  it,  as  well  as  outside  of  it :  it  is  by  a  just 
and  marvello\is  combination  of  these  laws  with  the  organized 
being   that   life   is  possible.     If  this  agreement  cease,  it  is 


160  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  V. 

quite  natural  that  life   should   cease,  or  be   troubled  at  its 
source. 

I  do  not  require  here  to  examine  the  possibility  of  miracles ; 
but  it  is  evident  that  one  has  no  right  to  require  that  nature 
should  be  continually  occupied  in  working  them.  That 
Providence  intervenes  in  a  special  manner  when  it  judges 
proper  is  possible,  —  and  we  will  neither  affirm  nor  deny  it, 
—  but  it  is  certain  that  it  is  more  suitable  to  the  Author  of 
things  to  act  according  to  general  laws,  than  to  intervene  in 
■each  particular  case.  To  suppose  that  each  fact  is  the  result 
of  an  immediate  volition  of  God,  is  simply  to  suppress  all 
second  causes.  If  there  are  second  causes,  they  act  according 
to  their  nature,  and  always  in  the  same  way  in  the  same 
circumstances,  which  is  what  we  call  laws.  When  the  action 
of  these  laws  becomes  prejudicial  or  useless  to  the  organized 
being,  must  God  personally  intervene  to  divert  its  causes,  and 
to  substitute  for  them  an  immediate  personal  action  ?  One  is 
.surprised  that  certain  phenomena,  which  have  an  end  in  the 
normal  state,  continue  to  be  performed  in  other  circumstances 
w^ith  evil  effect,  although  they  have  become  aimless.^     For 

^  Vulpian,  Phys.  du  syst.  nerveiix,  lep.  xiv.  :  '  The  tendency  to  restoration 
is  manifested  in  the  separated  parts  of  tlie  whole,  as  well  as  when  they  are  in 
their  normal  relations.  .  .  .  You  transplant  a  shred  of  the  periosteum.  There 
•occurs,  as  M.  Oilier  has  shown,  not  a  mere  calcification,  but  a  true  ossification, 
-with  all  its  characteristics.  What  useful  end  is  gained  by  this  ossification  ? 
"Would  it  not  have  been  more  for  the  good  of  the  individual  that  this  trans- 
planted shred  should  disappear  by  molecular  resorbtion  ?  You  transplant  a 
nerve.  After  deteriorating  it  recovers.  "What  end  can  be  served  by  this  frag- 
ment of  nerve,  henceforth  deprived  of  all  relation  to  the  nervous  centre  ? 
Why  does  it  anew  acquire  an  excitability  that  can  no  longer  be  put  in  opera- 
tion? .  .  .  Why  do  grafts  succeed,  such  as  the  engrafting  of  a  cock's  spur  in 
its  own  comb  or  in  that  of  another  of  the  same  species,  or  of  the  tail  or  paw 
•of  a  rat  under  the  skin  of  another  rat  ?  Why  does  the  growth  of  that  paw  or 
tail  take  place  in  so  regular  a  manner  and  stop  at  a  predetermined  period  ? 
"Who  does  not  see  that  here  there  is  no  foresight  of  an  end  to  be  attained,  and 
that  the  phenomena  only  require,  in  order  to  be  manifested,  and  that  hurtfully, 
in  following  a  necessary  course,  the  conditions  which  render  life  possible  ? 
These  conditions  are  furnished  by  grafting  in  certain  cases  ;  and  in  other  cases, 
of  nerves  restored  upon  the  spot,  they  have  only  been  momentarily  disturbed.' 
These  objections  of  M.  Vulpian  are  rather  directed  against  the  doctrine  of  the 
vital  principle  than  ag3,\ns%  final  causes.  How  far  they  avail  in  the  first  case  we 
do  not  inquire.  For  us  it  suffices  that  they  do  not  touch  the  principle  of 
(finality. 


THE   CONTRARY  FACTS.  161 

instance,  the  law  of  growth  of  organized  beings,  which  applies 
to  all  the  organs,  continues  to  apply  when  these  organs  are 
transplanted  to  the  body  of  another  animal,  which  is  called 
animal  engrafting.  But  was  it  needful,  then,  that  God  should 
take  precautions  for  the  case  that  an  ingenious  physiologist 
might  think  fit  to  transplant  the  tail  of  one  rat  under  the 
skin  of  another  ? 

The  existence  of  monsters  appears  one  of  the  gravest  con- 
tradictions given  by  nature  to  the  theory  of  final  causes.  Do 
not  those  beings,  made  in  an  extravagant  way,  in  opposition 
to  their  end,  and  which  are  either  unfit  to  live  or  called  to  a 
life  the  most  incomplete,  most  abnormal,  and  most  opposed 
to  the  essence  of  their  species  —  do  they  not  seem  the  product 
of  a  blind  nature,  acting  by  chance,  and  for  which  disorder  is 
as  natural  as  order  ?  Are  not  these  beings,  of  a  structure  so 
far  from  reasonable,  still  just  like  the  regular  beings,  arranged 
in  classes,  genera,  species,  forming  a  sort  of  teratological  order 
by  the  side  of  the  normal  order,  and  by  the  same  right? 
Does  it  not  seem,  as  Empedocles  said,  that  nature  has  made 
all  sorts  of  beings,  — '  oxen  with  human  heads,  and  men  with 

heads    of    oxen,'    jSovyevy    avSpoirpwpa,     avSpocfivr]    (SovKpava, and 

that  the  only  beings  that  have  survived  are  those  that  have 
been  found  capable  of  living  ? 

However  striking  and  startling  to  the  imagination  mon- 
strous births  may  be,  we  do  not  believe  that  we  have  here  a 
fact  differing  in  nature  from  all  the  accidental  deviations  that 
external  causes  may  produce  in  their  conflict  with  vital  laws. 
Granted  that  organized  beings  are  called  to  live  in  a  medium 
constituted  by  agents  purely  physical,  it  cannot  be  required 
that  these  physical  agents  should  suspend  at  every  instant 
the  action  of  the  laws  that  rule  them,  to  subserve  the  par- 
ticular interest  of  each  moment  of  the  organized  beings  of 
the  universe.  This  would  be  to  demand  that  there  should 
be  no  laws  of  nature,  and  no  theory  of  finality  is  committed 
to  that.  This  posited,  all  the  rest  follows ;  and  congenital 
deformities  are  no  more  extraordinary  than  those  that  are 


162  BOOK   I.   CHAPTER   V. 

acquired.  No  one  wonders  that  a  man  falls  and  breaks  his 
leg,  and  that  that  leg,  badly  set,  becoming  shorter  than  the 
other,  the  man  should  be  lame.  Why  should  it  not  be  the 
same  in  the  mother's  womb  ?  Why  should  not  some  unknown 
physical  or  physiological  action  accidentally  produce  internal 
disorders  —  fur  instance,  some  disarrangement  of  the  parts, 
some  suppression  of  organs  —  that  will  render  life  impossible 
or  incomplete  ?  The  phenomenon  only  appears  extraordinary 
to  us,  because  for  us  the  being  only  commences  to  live  when 
it  comes  forth ;  but  it  was  living  before,  and  hence  it  may 
have  been  infirm  or  sick  before  its  birth.  If  an  infant,  newh^ 
born,  may  have  convulsions,  why  should  it  not  have  them 
before  birth?  and  if  it  can  be  born  dead,  why  should  it  not 
be  born  sick  or  deformed?  On  this  ground,  monsters  no 
more  afford  an  objection  to  final  causes  than  all  the  other 
anomalies  which  we  have  discussed.  They  are  all  solved  by 
a  general  principle  —  namely,  that  finality  is  only  a  mean 
or  a  compromise  between  the  proper  interest  of  each  living 
being  and  the  general  conditions  of  stability  which  the 
preservation  of  the  universe  demands. 

As  to  the  pretended  parity  existing  between  monsters  and 
normal  beings,  —  as  if  nature,  at  haphazard,  cast  both  upon  the 
surface  of  the  globe,  —  it  has  already  been  refuted  above,  and 
is  contradicted  by  all  the  facts.  Monsters,  in  effect,  are  of  a 
rarity  not  to  be  explained  on  the  hypothesis  of  a  nature  abso- 
lutely indifferent  between  order  and  disorder.  Besides,  even 
if  an  equality  of  cases  existed,  it  would  be  inexplicable,  for 
in  the  domain  of  chance,  order  ought  to  be  an  accident  and  a 
rarity,  and  disorder  the  law.  What  proves  that  the  production 
of  monstrosities  is  owing  in  a  great  measure  to  the  action  of 
the  medium,  is  the  very  means  employed  to  produce  them  arti- 
ficially. To  obtain  anomalies,  and  often  monstrosities,  says  the 
learned  teratologist,  M.  Camille  Dareste,^  four  processes  may 
be  employed :  '  A  vertical  position  of  the  eggs  ;  the  diminution 
of  the  porosity  of  the  shell  by  applications  more  or  less  imper- 

1  M€moire  sur  la  teratologic  exp^rimentale,  cbap.  i. 


THE  CONTRARY  FACTS.  163 

meable  to  the  air ;  the  contact  of  the  egg  with  a  source  of  heat 
at  a  point  near  the  cicatricule,  but  not  coinciding  with  it ;  in 
fine,  the  employment  of  temperatures  a  little  lower  or  higher 
than  that  of  normal  incubation.  By  means  of  the  first  two 
processes  the  evolution  is  often  modified ;  it  is  so  always.'  We 
thus  see  how  small  a  thing  suffices  to  disturb  the  regular  evo- 
lution of  the  germ,  and  how  the  organizing  and  conservative 
force  must  prevail  over  the  contrary  force,  in  order  to  triumph 
in  the  majority  of  cases  over  so  many  disturbing  causes. 

In  fine,  as  to  the  teratological  classifications,  which  seem 
to  establish  a  certain  order  in  the  domain  of  disorder,  they 
in  no  way  prove  that  monsters  exist  by  the  same  right  as 
normal  beings,  and  that  they  might  be  considered  as  forming 
a  world  co-ordinated  thereto.  They  are  only,  in  reality, 
deviated  individuals,  and  not  a  kingdom  apart ;  and  if  they 
afford  room  for  classifications,  it  is  still  the  normal  state 
that  here  serves  as  criterion  and  type,  for  it  is  by  starting 
from  the  normal  organs  of  the  species,  and  from  their  natural 
situation,  that  we  succeed  in  classifying  all  the  species  of 
disorders  that  can  be  produced. 

It  will  be  asked,  whether  there  is  anything  that  can  be, 
strictly  speaking,  called  the  normal  state,  —  whether  there  is 
a  class  embracing  those  beings  born  capable  of  living,  and 
that  might  be  called  natural,  and  another  class  contrary  to 
nature,  and  embracing  the  monsters  ?  Aristotle  has  rightly 
said  that  'monsters  are  not  against  nature  in  general,  but 
against  what  occurs  oftenest.'  Montaigne  expresses  the 
same  idea  in  magnificent  terms  :  '  Do  not  what  we  call  mon- 
sters belong  to  God?  .  .  .  By  all  His  wisdom  He  produces 
nothing  but  what  is  good  and  regulated,  but  we  do  not  see 
their  assortment  and  relation.  .  .  .  We  call  what  happens 
contrary  to  custom,  contrary  to  nature.  There  is  nothing 
but  what  is  according  to  it,  whatever  it  be.'  ^     It  is  only  in 

1  Esf!ai/s,  lib.  ii.  chap.  30.  The  learned  teratologist,  M.  Camille  Dareste, 
writes  to  the  same  effect:  'In  reality,  there  are  no  monsters.  This  result  I  de- 
rive from  all  the  labours  of  the  teratologists,  and  particularly  of  the  two  MM. 


164  BOOK  I.   CHAPTER  V. 

appearance,  then,  that  monsters  are  contrary  to  nature ;  and 
nothing  exists,  strictly  speaking,  that  is  not  natural. 

A  more  profound  examination  of  this  new  difficulty  would 
carry  us  wide  of  our  subject,  and  would  draw  us  into  re- 
searches that  seem  to  us  useless ;  in  effect,  we  here  touch  the 
great  question  of  the  Middle  Ages,  which  is  also  the  great 
question  of  contemporary  zoological  philosophy  —  namely, 
the  reality  of  genera  and  species.  Are  there  really  absolute 
types  constituting  for  each  species  what  can  be  called  nature, 
and  beyond  which  all  that  might  be  produced  could  be  called 
contrary  to  nature  ?  Or,  rather,  are  there  only  groups  of 
phenomena,  more  or  less  stable,  whereof  none  in  particular 
can  be  called  more  natural  than  the  others,  since  all  that  is 
is  in  nature  ?  The  only  difference  would  be  that  some  are 
produced  more  frequently,  and  have  a  greater  vitality ;  the 
others  more  rarely,  and  are  more  dissoluble,  that  is,  liable  ta 
perish ;  but  there  would  be  no  absolute  separation  between 
the  one  class  and  the  other. 

We  do  not  require  to  engage  in  this  debate.  What  we 
call  nature  in  speaking  of  living  beings,  what  constitutes  for 
us  the  normal  or  natural  state,  is  the  memi  of  the  phenomena 
tending  to  the  greatest  preservation  of  the  species  and  of  the 
individual.  All  that  shall  deviate  but  little  from  this  mean, 
on  this  side  or  that,  will  be  considered  conformable  to 
nature ;  all  that  deviates  much  will  be  called  contrar}^,  not  to 
nature  in  general,  since  nothing  can  happen  contrary  to  it& 
laws,  but  to  the  nature  of  a  certain  living  species,  which,  in 
order  to  exist,  has  need  of  a  certain  combination  of  condi- 
tions.    All  that  departs  from  these  conditions  is,  in  a  certain 

Geoffrey  Saint  Hilaire,  as  well  as  from  all  my  own  studies.  I  have  seen  formed 
almost  all  the  types  described  by  teratology,  and  I  can  see  in  monstrosity 
nothing  but  a  modification  of  development,  most  frequently  an  arrest  produced 
by  an  accidental  cause.  In  these  new  conditions  the  development  continues 
so  far  as  the  anomaly  is  compatible  with  life.  When  a  period  arrives  in  which 
it  ceases  to  be  compatible  with  life,  the  monster  dies,  but  only  for  this  reason.' 
These  views  are  very  good,  and  appear  to  us  quite  sound.  We  will  only  ven- 
ture to  ask.  Why  must  there,  then,  be  monsters?  And  what  idea  could  one 
form  of  monstrosity  but  that  of  an  anomaly  generally  incompatible  with  life  7 


THE   CONTRARY  FACTS.  165 

degree,  monstrous,  which  is  the  name  given  when  the  devia- 
tion is  very  great.  Thus,  whether  genera  and  species  are 
absolute  and  fixed  types,  of  which  monsters  are  the  contra- 
diction and  the  confusion,  or  whether  they  are  simple  means, 
the  constant  parts  among  supple  and  flexible  phenomena, 
and  then  that  monsters  are  only  particular  cases,  rare  and 
less  solid  combinations,  matters  little  to  us ;  ^  in  either  case 
the  rule  is  the  agreement  of  the  phenomena  with  the  preser- 
vation of  the  animal.  In  both  cases  monstrosity  is  an  acci- 
dent, caused  by  the  predominance  of  the  laws  of  nature  iu 
general  over  the  interests  of  living  nature,  or  of  the  nature 
of  a  certain  being  in  particular.  Whatever  cause  usually 
produces  the  agreement  of  phenomena  has  not  been  able  in 
a  given  case  to  produce  all  its  effect,  and  has  found  itself 
limited  in  its  action  by  the  action  of  external  causes :  the 
form  has  not  entirely  triumphed  over  matter.  This  is  the 
sense  in  which  monsters  may  be  called  errors  of  nature. 

This  point  made  clear,  what  we  maintain  is,  that  acci- 
dental and  degenerate  forms  cannot  be  considered  as  the 
primordial  causes  of  the  regular  and  constant  forms.  No 
doubt,  given  the  types,  in  the  more  or  less  wide  sense  attrib- 
uted to  this  word,  one  can  understand  that,  as  a  result  of  the 
conflict  with  the  general  laws  of  nature,  accidental  deviations 
could  be  produced,  but  not  that  by  the  multiplied  reproduc- 
tion of  such  accidents,  and  by  the  competition  established 
between  these  freaks  of  nature,  the  agreement  and  uniformity 
of  the  phenomena  have  been  established.  Order  might,  in- 
deed, by  accident  support  some  disorder,  but  disorder  cannot 
be  the  principle  of  order.  Again,  in  what  we  now  call  mon- 
sters there  is  some  remainder  of  the  agreement  and  order 
which  secure   the  preservation  of  the  normal  beings  from 

1  That  the  theory  of  finality  is  not  subordinate  to  that  of  the  reality  of 
genera  and  species  is  manifestly  proved  by  the  products  of  human  activity, 
which  are  evidently  works  where  finality  rules,  and  which  yet  only  consti- 
tute genera  and  species  artificially,  —  for  instance,  beds,  tables,  etc.  No  one, 
despite  Plato,  will  maintain  that  there  exist  absolute  ideas  of  these  kinds  of 
objects,  and  yet  they  evidently  imply  means  and  ends. 


166  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  V. 

which  they  have  proceeded ;  but  this  principle  of  order  being 
suppressed,  since  it,  again,  is  due  to  heredity,  there  would 
only  remain  the  mere  conflict  of  blind  forces. 

This  principle  of  the  conflict  of  final  and  efficient  causes 
has  been  recognised  by  many  great  philosophers.  Plato  was 
■conscious  of  it  when  he  made  two  sorts  of  causes  concur  in 
the  creation,  —  on  the  one  hand,  the  idea  of  the  good,  the 
principle  of  order,  harmony,  and  wisdom ;  and,  on  the  other, 
the  necessary  causes,  the  conditions  of  the  production  of 
phenomena.^  Aristotle  explained  evil  in  the  same  manner ; 
Leibnitz  also  approves  the  doctrine.  He  recognises  a  sort 
of  ideal  necessity  residing  in  matter,  and  which  is  the  cause 
of  disorder  and  of  what  we  call  evil.  This  opinion,  indeed, 
in  the  thought  of  Plato  and  Aristotle,  implied  a  veritable 
dualism,  and  a  blind  power  forming  a  counterpoise  and  ob- 
stacle to  the  divine  power.  But  this  may  be  also  understood 
in  a  good  sense,  even  without  admitting  matter  to  be  eternal. 
It  is  the  necessity  inherent  in  the  creation  itself  and  in  the 
subordinate  causes,  which  only  give  themselves  to  a  certain 
extent  to  the  realization  of  a  design.  Even  if  the  absolute 
unity  of  the  supreme  cause  be  admitted,  that  cause  could 
only  realize  its  designs  by  means  of  laws  or  properties  of  na- 
ture ;  and  from  these  natural  properties  there  might  always 
accidentally  proceed  some  injurious  effect  as  a  necessary 
consequence. 

Besides,  the  rencounter  and  complication  of  ends,  and  their 
necessary  subordination,  may  also  accidentally  bring  about 
•effects  apparently  injurious,  and  which  are  only,  as  they  say, 
the  condition  of  wellbeing.  The  Stoics  had  marked  well  the 
■origin  of  such  disorders,  which  are  only  consecutive,  and  not 
■essential.  They  called  them  to.  Kara  TrapaKoXovOrjo-Lv,  per  sequelas. 
Chrysippus  gave  an  ingenious  example  of  them :  '  The  gen- 
eral convenience  of  the  body,'  said  he,  'required  that  the 
head  should  be  composed  of  light  and  fine  bones  ;  but  the 
Jiead  has  thereby  been  rendered  feebly  protected,  and  ex- 

1  Timmis,  29.  30,  48. 


THE   CONTRARY  FACTS.  167 

posed  to  blows.'  So  the  membrane  of  the  eye,  to  be  trans- 
parent, must  be  very  light,  and  thereby  easily  put  out.  But 
nature  was  satisfied  with  the  adoption  of  the  most  general 
precautions. 

To  those  who  say  that  nature,  having  taken  certain  pre- 
cautions, ought  to  have  taken  still  more,  I  will  answer :  How 
far  is  this  reasoning  to  be  pressed?  Ought  nature  to  have 
taken  so  many  precautions  that  the  organized  machine  should 
not  be  subject  to  death,  and  should  never  perish  ?  But 
what  right  have  we  to  require  that  an  organized  being  should 
last  forever  ?  And  why  should  it  not  enter  into  the  plan  of 
a  wise  being  that  some  should  give  place  to  others?  This 
being  so,  it  suffices  that  there  are  precautions  enough  to 
secure  the  general  continuance  of  life  in  the  universe,  with- 
out needing  to  secure  each  individual  against  all  possible 
accidents  arising  from  the  rencounter  of  causes. 

We  are  told :  You  only  see  one  side  of  the  picture.  You 
see  nature  beneficent;  you  refuse  to  see  it  doing  evil  and 
opposing;  in  short,  you  explain  the  good,  but  you  do  not 
explain  the  evil.  To  this  we,  in  our  turn,  can  answer  the 
opponents  of  final  causes :  You  explain  the  evil,  but  you  do 
not  explain  the  good.  There  would  thus,  at  least,  be  equality 
on  both  sides.  But  if  we  wish  to  consider  matters  impar- 
tially, it  will  be  seen  that  this  equality  does  not  exist. 

In  effect,  he  who  admits  at  once  final  and  efficient  causes, 
has  more  opportunity  to  explain  matters  than  he  who  only 
admits  efficient  but  not  final  causes.  The  idea  of  end  in  no 
way  contradicts  the  idea  of  effect  and  result ;  there  may  very 
well  be  at  once  both  ends  and  results  in  nature.  It  is  not 
even  necessary  that  every  result  be  an  end,  or  even  a  means ; 
it  may  simply  be  an  inevitable  consequence  of  the  employ- 
ment of  certain  means  with  reference  to  certain  ends.  Finality 
and  necessity  do  not  exclude  each  other.  The  order  of 
things  may  be  at  once  an  intentional  and  a  logical  order, 
without  it  being  possible  to  say  absolutely  which  of  these 
orders  is  subordinate  to  the  other;  and  we  are  in  no  way 


168  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  V. 

bound  to  reconcile  them  to  the  last  detail,  which  would 
require  absolute  knowledge.  It  is  enough  for  us  to  conceive 
a  priori  an  explanation  of  evil  that  in  no  way  excludes  the 
foresight  that  has  produced  good. 

Is  the  situation  as  favourable  for  those  who  are  content 
with  affirming  efficient,  and  who  deny  final  causes  ?  Certainly 
not ;  for  they  are  obliged  to  allege  that  the  conflict  of  efficient 
causes  suffices  to  produce  an  apparent  co-ordination  to  an 
end,  but  that  is  what  we  never  see  in  our  experience. 
Never  do  we  see  efficient  causes,  left  to  themselves  and 
given  up  unhindered  to  grope  in  the  dark,  produce  some  effect 
similar  to  a  foreseen  end ;  never  do  we  see  them  co-ordinate 
their  actions  in  reference  to  a  definite  future  effect.  It  is,^ 
then,  entirely  arbitrary  to  attribute  to  blind  necessity  the 
power  of  attaining  the  best.  Our  mind  cannot  conceive  how- 
winds  let  loose,  raging  waves,  a  volcano  in  eruption  —  how 
such  a  conflict  of  natural  forces  should  produce  a  reasonable 
effect.  Yet  this  is  what  we  must  suppose  on  the  hypothesis 
of  a  blind  mechanism,  or,  at  the  very' least,  attribute  to  nature 
a  certain  instinctive  and  blind  power  of  intention,  which 
would  be  itself  to  recognise  in  some  degree  the  hypothesis 
of  final  causes. 

Evil,  then,  like  all  the  imperfections  we  have  mentioned 
above,  is  only  the  accidental  consequence  of  the  conflict  of 
efficient  and  final  causes,  and  of  the  conflict  of  final  causes 
with  each  other.  Those  imperfections  have  given  occasion 
to  certain  philosophers  to  suppose  that  God  did  not  directly 
put  His  hand  to  the  work  of  creating  the  universe,  but  that 
He  employed  some  intermediary,  who,  being  himself  an  imper- 
fect creature,  behoved  to  commit  mistakes,  and  often  to  be 
at  fault.  Thus  Plato,  in  the  Timceus,  shows  us  God  calling 
the  gods  tu  labour  subordinately,  and  giving  them  the  general 
plan  of  His  work  which  they  are  thereupon  charged  to  execute. 
So  Cudworth,  a  Platonic  philosopher,  imagines  a  eeTtain plastic- 
nature.,  which  instinctively  and  blindly  produces  and  organ- 
izes the  universe  after  the  order  of  God,  and  which  is  alone 


THE   CONTRARY    FACTS.  169 

responsible  for  the  disorders  and  defects  of  the  work.  This 
singular  theory,  which  seems  to  apply  to  the  divine  rule  the 
principles  of  parliamentary  government,  inventing  responsible 
ministers  to  cover  an  infallible  and  impeccable  sovereign,  is 
evidentl}'  an  insufficient  palliative ;  fur  God  would  be  quite 
as  reprehensible  in  having  chosen  inefficient  ministers  as 
if  He  had  Himself  committed  the  faults  with  which  they  are 
reproached ;  and  if  these  faults  could  have  been  avoided  by 
putting  His  own  hand  to  the  work,  one  cannot  see  why  He 
has  not  done  it.  It  is  hardly  generous  to  cast  on  inferiors 
the  faults  of  the  great,  and  to  exculpate  the  sovereign  at  the 
expense  of  the  ministers.  This  is  an  arrangement  which 
may  be  wise,  in  a  political  point  of  view,  in  the  government 
of  the  state,  and  is  known  to  every  one  to  be  only  conven- 
tional. But  in  the  government  of  Providence  it  is  not  so ; 
and  as  it  is  the  sole  absolute  cause,  all  action  is  derived  from 
it,  and  all  responsibility  ascends  to  it. 

There  is  no  other  issue  of  the  problem  of  evil  than  what 
we  are  indicatmg.  Whatever  world  God  creates  will  always 
be  composed  of  substances  and  causes  having  a  certain  deter- 
minate nature,  which,  consequentl}-,  will  only  be  able  to  enter 
into  a  given  combination.  But  that  combination,  whatever 
it  be,  in  virtue  of  the  very  necessities  implied  in  the  nature 
of  things,  must  needs  contain  defects  and  disorders  analogous 
to  what  we  observe  in  our  world.  As  long  as  there  are 
beings  in  time  and  space  distinct  from  each  other,  limited 
by  each  other,  they  will  necessarily  be  subordinate  to  each 
other.  Some  will  serve  as  conditions  and  limits  to  others;  no 
one  will  admit  of  being  considered  separately  as  a  whole,  — 
it  must  always  reckon  with  the  others,  and  all  with  the  whole. 
Hence  follow  relations  without  end,  which  no  finite  intelli- 
gence can  possibly  follow  in  all  their  details ;  hence  apparent 
or  real  anomalies,  required  by  the  general  conditions  of  the 
whole ;  hence  the  inability  of  each  thing  in  particular  to 
attain  all  the  ideal  perfection  of  which  it  is  capable.  Hence, 
in  short,  it  follows  that  the  idea  of  perfection  is  incompatible 


170  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  \. 

with  the  idea  of  a  finite  thing,  for  a  finite  thing  is  only 
such  because  it  has  need  of  other  things  to  exist.  It  is  thus 
conditioned  by  these  things,  and,  in  using,  depends  on  them , 
for  these  things,  having  themselves  their  own  nature  and  their 
particular  end,  cannot  be  absolutely  sacrificed  even  to  superior 
ends.  Thus  masters  make  use  of  the  services  of  their  do- 
mestics, but  must  bear  their  faults  and  leave  them  some 
personality ;  for  experience  teaches  us  that  he  who  will  have 
too  much  does  not  obtain  enough.  Free  produces  more  than 
slave  labour.  So  in  the  universe  there  will  be  a  greater  sum 
of  labour  effected  if  each  being  knows  how  to  limit  itself,  and 
accepts  those  limits,  than  if  the  superior  beings  had  obtained 
that  all  the  rest  should  be  sacrificed  to  them ;  which,  besides, 
has  no  sense,  for  as  long  as  there  are  conditions,  these  condi- 
tions will  be  a  limit,  and,  consequently,  a  cause  of  imperfection. 
This  is  what  we  may  call,  with  Leibnitz,  the  matter  or  neces- 
sity inherent  in  the  essence  of  the  finite  thing ;  and  here,  wdth 
him,  we  must  place  the  cause  of  evil.  Hence  that  profound 
conception,  according  to  which  the  world  would  only  have 
been  for  the  creator  a  problem  of  maxima  and  minima,  —  to 
find  the  greatest  sum  possible  of  good,  produced  with  the  least 
possible  loss,  —  a  problem  analogous  to  that  of  the  mechani- 
cian, who  endeavours,  in  constructing  a  machine,  to  obtain 
the  greatest  amount  of  useful  work  with  the  least  quantity  of 
loss.  But  there  will  always  be  a  part  of  the  work  employed 
in  moving  the  machine  itself,  and  consequently  perpetual 
motion  is  impossible.  So  in  the  universe  there  will  always  be 
a  part  of  action  or  of  good  which  will  be  lost  by  the  conflict 
and  friction  of  things  upon  each  other :  consequently,  absolute 
good  is  not  possible.  What  is  possible  in  both  cases  is  a 
maximum  or  an  optimum;  but  to  know  whether  this  optimum 
has  really  been  obtained,  we  would  need,  on  the  one  hand,  to 
know  the  divine  integral  calculus,  and  the  theorems  in  virtue 
of  which  the  operation  has  been  made,  and,  on  the  other,  the 
data  and  the  condition  of  the  operation  itself,  both  of  which 
are  absolutely  impossible. 


THE   CONTRARY  FACTS.  171 

Besides,  this  were  to  advance  much  farther  than  is  neces- 
sary here  into  the  domain  of  the  Theodicy.  Our  problem 
does  not  extend  so  far,  and  even  our  method  ought  to  forbid 
these  rash  excursions.  We  have  not  yet  to  affirm  anything 
regarding  the  primary  cause  of  natural  finality,  and  the 
existence  only  of  that  finality  has  as  yet  been  the  object  of 
our  studies.  We  have  had  no  other  aim  in  this  chapter  than 
to  explain  the  contradiction  which,  in  certain  cases,  experience 
seems  to  give  to  the  theory  of  final  causes,  without  being 
bound  to  justify  the  primary  cause  of  these  apparent  contra- 
dictions. It  suffices  for  our  point  of  view  that  the  exceptions 
mentioned  have  nothing  inexplicable ;  as  to  the  justification 
of  Providence,  that  belongs  to  another  domain.^ 

1  On  the  question  of  evil  and  of  optimism,  see  the  appendix. 


CHAPTER    VI. 

MECHANISM  AND  FINALITY. 

rilHE  animal  kingdom  is  like  a  tournej-ground,  where  there 
-^  come  to  fight,  on  the  one  side  the  physicists,  accustomed 
to  explain  all  by  efficient  causes,  and  on  the  other  the 
psychologists,  accustomed  to  explain  phenomena  by  the  final 
cause.  The  latter,  starting  from  man,  are  chiefly  struck 
with  the  analogies  which  the  industry  of  nature  presents  to 
human  industry.  The  former,  starting  from  matter,  are 
struck  with  the  analogies  which  the  properties  of  living 
matter  present  to  the  properties  of  matter  in  general.  On 
the  one  side,  it  is  sought  to  explain  life  by  psychological 
views ;  on  the  other,  by  physical  and  mechanical  considera- 
tions. We  have  followed  the  thread  of  analogies  by  starting 
from  one  of  these  two  principles.  It  is  only  just  now  to 
attempt  the  opposite  method,  in  order  to  weigh  fairly  the 
advantage  of  both.^ 

One  of  the  most  striking  examples  of  the  purely  physical 
explanation  of  a  marvellous  concord  of  phenomena  is  the  ex- 
ample already  cited  of  the  cosmogonic  hypothesis  of  Laplace. 
If  the  problem  presented  be  considered,  it  appears  that  we 
cannot  explain  by  any  physical  cause  so  many  coincidences 
presented  by  the  solar  system :  1st,  The  coincidence  of  forty- 
three  motions  all  in  one  direction ;  2d,  The  similar  arrange- 


1  In  order  not  to  complicate  and  retard  the  discussion,  we  remit  to  the 
appendix  the  discussion  of  the  particular  objections,  under  their  historic  form, 
set  forth  by  Lucretius,  Bacon,  Descartes,  Spinoza,  against  final  causes.  But 
the  spirit  and  sense  of  these  objections  come  to  be  concentrated  in  the  doctrine 
of  mechanism.  We  therefore  sum  them  up  here  in  their  totality,  and  give 
them  a  systematic  form,  by  presenting,  with  all  i'"s  advantages,  the  hypothesis 
of  mechanism.  For  the  detail,  see  the  appendix,  i^bjections  and  Difficulties. 
172 


MECHANISM  AND   FINALITY.  173 

iOient  of  all  the  stars  iu  the  same  plane;  3d,  The  central 
position  of  the  sun,  whence  there  incessantly  proceed  to  all 
the  stars  that  surround  it  rays  of  heat  and  light.  Yet 
iill  these  coincidences,  all  these  wonderful  agreements,  are 
explained  without  difficulty  on  the  hypothesis  of  a  primitive 
nebula  rotating  in  whatever  direction,  and  progressively 
transformed.  Now  the  existence  of  rotating  nebulae  is  matter 
of  experience.  The  existence  of  nebulae  with  nuclei  vari- 
ously condensed  is  equally  matter  of  observation.  Besides, 
experience  proves  that  a  rotating  fluid  mass  gives  birth  to  a 
central  nucleus  surrounded  by  a  ring,  an  arrangement  like  that 
presented  by  Saturn  at  present.  In  fine,  the  theory  teaches 
us  that  this  ring  behoves  to  break  and  give  birth  to  secondary 
stars,  always  involved  in  the  motion  of  the  central  star.  Thus 
nothing  is  more  probable,  nothing  more  rational,  than  this  hy- 
pothesis, into  which  there  enters  no  consideration  of  finality. 
Will  it  be  said  that  here  the  facts  to  be  explained  present, 
it  is  true,  a  remarkable  concord  and  co-ordination  of  phe- 
nomena, a  system,  but  that  that  system  does  not  present  the 
essential  character  to  which  we  have  reduced  finality,  namely, 
agreement  with  a  future  determinate  phenomenon  ?  Advan- 
tage could  not  be  taken  even  of  this  means  of  escape  ;  for  all 
this  evolution  ends  in  a  final  phenomenon  of  high  importance, 
namely,  the  central  position  of  the  sun,  which  is  the  condition 
of  life  in  the  various  planets.  Now  it  could  be  and  has  been 
maintained,  that  this  central  position  of  a  warm  and  luminous 
star  was  the  best  possible  for  the  whole  system.  '  It  would 
require  more  astronomical  knowledge  than  I  can  here  display,' 
says  the  judicious  Paley,  'to  explain  in  detail  what  would  be 
the  effects  of  a  system  in  which  the  central  body  should  be 
opaque  and  cold,  while  one  of  the  planets  was  luminous  and 
warm.  I  believe,  however,  it  will  easily  be  perceived  —  1st, 
That,  taking  for  granted  the  necessary  proportion  in  the  re- 
spective masses  of  the  bodies  in  repose  and  those  in  motion, 
the  burning  planet  would  not  suffice  to  light  and  heat  all  the 
system ;  2d,  That  the  heat  and  light  would  be  imparted  to  the 


174  BOOK  I.   CHAPTER  VI. 

other  planets  in  a  much  less  regular  manner  than  they  are  by 
the  sun.'  ^  Thus,  according  to  Paley,  the  central  position  of 
the  sun  is  the  best  possible  as  regards  the  distribution  of  heat 
and  light.  It  may  be  said,  then,  that  the  planetary  system  is 
co-ordinated  in  relation  to  this  best  possible  distribution,  and 
there  would  be  room  to  apply  even  here  the  criterion  we  have 
given  of  finality.  And  yet  we  have  just  seen  that  this  re- 
markable concord  and  arrangement  of  phenomena  is  explained 
mechanically  in  the  most  simple  way.  Why  should  not  this 
mode  of  explanation,  which  here  finds  so  happy  an  application^ 
equally  apply  to  the  combinations,  no  doubt  more  complex, 
but  not  essentially  different,  which  organized  beings  present  ? 
The  phenomena  of  crystallization,  again,  are  phenomena  in 
which  there  are  manifested  a  systematic,  indisputable  order 
and  arrangement,  without  it  seeming  necessary  to  invoke  any 
finality.  No  doubt  chemistry  has  only  as  yet  hypotheses  to  ex- 
plain those  different  geometric  forms  that  the  different  bodies 
take  in  crystallizing ;  but  these  hypotheses,  whatever  they  be» 
only  appeal  to  the  properties  of  matter  subject  to  geometric 
laws.  No  one  will  say  that  the  molecules  of  the  different 
bodies  come  together  mutually  with  the  view  of  forming 
prisms,  cones,  and  pyramids ;  and  yet  they  take  such  forms. 
Why  might  it  not  be  said  that,  in  virtue  of  like  properties, 
the  living  molecules  are  co-ordinated  according  to  the  type  of 
the  vertebrata,  the  articulata,  or  the  radiata?  What  differ- 
ence is  there,  indeed,  between  the  zoological  and  the  chemical 
types,  except  that  the  former  are  more  complicated  ?  And  if 
it  be  admitted  that  the  molecules,  in  virtue  of  causes  unknown 
to  us,  may  have  taken  this  or  that  form,  why  might  it  not  be 
admitted  that  they  may  have  fallen  upon  forms  more  or  less 
like  those  that  human  art  gives  to  its  inventions,  —  here  the 
form  of  a  bag,  there  of  a  pump ;  here  of  forceps,  there  of  a 
millstone ;  elsewhere  that  of  a  canal,  a  sucker  or  lens,  an  ear- 
trumpet,  cords,  levers,  etc.?  These  innumerable  forms  might 
only  be  the  result  of  the  arrangement  of  the  molecules  after 

1  Paley,  Natural  Theology,  chap,  xviii. 


MECHANISM  AND   FINALITY  175 

certain  laws ;  but  such  forms  once  produced  in  living  matter, 
what  wonder  that  they  should  act  conformably  to  their  struc- 
ture ?  What  wonder  that  the  bones,  being  hard,  should  sup- 
port the  body ;  that  the  muscles,  endued  with  the  property  of 
contracting,  should  be  capable  of  putting  the  bones  in  motion  j 
that  the  courses  of  the  veins  and  arteries  being  hollow,  the 
blood  should  be  able  to  flow  in  them  ;  that  the  heart,  being  a 
muscle,  should  be  possessed  of  an  impelling  power ;  that  the 
teeth,  being  broad,  pointed,  or  sharp,  should  be  apt  to  grinds 
tear,  or  cut ;  that  claws,  being  curved,  should  be  fit  for  plun- 
ging into  an  animal's  flesh ;  that  the  eye,  being  composed  of 
humours  of  different  densities,  should  refract  the  light,  and 
make  its  rays  converge  towards  a  central  point ;  that  sonorous- 
cords  should  be  apt  to  vibrate ;  that  the  male  and  female 
organs,  having  hit  upon  forms  at  once  analogous  and  opposite, 
should  be  fit  to  answer  each  other ;  and  so  of  all  the  organs  ? 
In  a  word,  the  adaptation  of  organs  to  functions  is  a 
metaphor ;  there  is  no  adaptation,  but  simply  manifestation 
of  properties  inherent  in  the  organ  itself.  Given  a  living  sub- 
stance, it  is  natural  it  should  act,  and  should  act  according  to 
its  structure.  Function  is  nothing  else  than  the  organ  acting. 
What  wonder  that  it  should  be  apt  to  produce  it?  As  well 
wonder  that  the  concave  surface  should  be  so  marvellously 
adapted  to  the  convex  ;  as  if  the  concave  and  the  convex  were- 
not  the  same  thing  considered  from  two  different  points  of 
view.  So  of  organ  and  function  ;  they  are  two  points  of  view 
of  one  and  the  same  thing  —  living  matter.  It  is  at  once 
active  and  organized,  and  its  activity  is  evidently  modified  by 
its  organization  ;  such  organ,  such  action ;  if  the  organ  be 
modified,  the  action  is  equally  modified.  Be  the  organ,  for 
instance,  the  fourth  section  of  the  anterior  member,  in  man  it 
will  be  a  prehensile  agent ;  in  the  horse,  an  agent  of  support ; 
in  the  bird,  an  agent  of  flight ;  in  the  fish,  an  agent  of  nata- 
tion, etc.  Thus  the  foim  determines  the  action,  but  nothing 
warrants  you  to  affirm  that  the  action  predetermines  the  form. 
For  why  should  there  necessarily  be  in  nature  beings  called 


176  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  VI. 

to  fly,  swim,  or  creep?  And  as  to  the  organic  forms  whose 
action  would  either  be  injurious  or  useless  to  the  animal,  they 
would  either  probably  bring  about  their  destruction,  —  and 
no  wonder  if  we  do  not  meet  with  such,  —  or  else  they  would 
•disappear  in  default  of  use,  in  virtue  of  that  well-established 
law  that  organs  are  developed  by  exercise  and  atrophied  by 
inaction. 

Thus  function  is  only  a  result  of  the  organ  when  once 
formed.  Meanwhile  it  remains  to  explain  the  formation  of 
the  organ.  But  if  the  planetary  system,  which  shows  us  the 
regular  arrangement  of  a  multitude  of  stars  all  revolving  in 
the  same  direction  according  to  an  elliptic  curve,  and  nearly 
in  the  same  plane,  around  a  central  star ;  if  the  different  sys- 
tems of  chemical  crystallization,  which  enable  us  to  witness 
varied  groupings  of  molecules  according  to  geometrical  laws, 
—  if  these  different  systems  can  be  explained  by  the  sole  prin- 
-ciple  of  the  properties  of  matter,  without  in  any  way  bringing 
in  the  idea  of  the  end,  why  should  it  not  be  the  same  with 
organic  systems,  which  only  differ  from  the  preceding  in  the 
complication  of  their  forms  and  the  marvellous  variety  of  their 
structures?  But  who  can  measure  the  productive  fecundity 
•of  nature  ?  More  or  less  complexity  in  its  works  does  not, 
then,  imply  the  necessary  intervention  of  a  new  cause  which 
had  hitherto  been  dispensed  with. 

Thus,  leaving  entirely  aside  the  question  of  the  nature  of  life, 
and  without  at  all  prejudging  the  question  of  the  existence  or 
non-existence  of  a  vital  agent,  it  may  be  said  that  the  finality 
of  living  beings  is  a  pure  appearance,  and  is  reducible  to  the 
general  laws  of  mechanism,  that  is,  to  the  chain  of  phenomena 
according  to  laws.  In  other  words,  the  series  of  phenomena 
is  unilateral.  There  is  only  a  descending  series,  that  which 
proceeds  from  causes  to  effects,  from  antecedents  to  conse- 
quents. There  is  no  inverse  series,  that  which  proceeds  from 
means  to  ends,  and  which,  therefore,  places  the  cause  in  the 
effect,  and  determines  the  antecedent  by  the  consequent.  This 
inversion,  already  mentioned  by  Aristotle,  then  by  Lucretius, 


MECHANISM  AND   FINALITY.  177 

then  by  Spinoza,  then  by  G.  St.  Hilaire,  and  by  the  modern 
naturalists,  which  changes  the  effect  into  the  cause  and  the 
cause  into  effect,  is  contrary  to  the  scientific  method,  and  is 
in  no  way  justified  nor  necessitated  by  the  facts,  however 
seemingly  marvellous,  of  the  animal  or  vegetable  kingdom. 
Analogies  are  relied  on  in  order  to  discover  designs  and  ends 
in  living  nature,  but  other  analogies  may  serve  to  explain 
these  wonderful  facts  without  design  and  without  an  end. 
Causes  no  more  than  beings  ought  to  be  multiplied  without 
necessity.  What  need  is  there  to  recur  to  the  final  cause 
when  one  can  be  satisfied  by  the  efficient? 

Thus,  while  on  the  one  hand,  by  a  continued  declension, 
we  have  been  able  to  descend  from  analogy  to  analogy,  from 
the  express  foresight  manifested  in  human  intelligence  to  an 
unconscious  foresight  manifested  in  the  living  organism,  recip- 
rocally, in  ascending  by  a  continued  complication  from  the 
most  simple  geometric  to  the  most  skilful  organic  forms,  it 
has  been  possible  to  explain,  by  a  coincidence  of  mechanical 
causes,  the  same  phenomena  which  we  have  referred  to  the 
final  cause. 

Let  the  problem  be  well  understood.  On  the  one  hand,  the 
final  cause  is  incontestably  manifested  in  the  psychological 
sphere  ;  the  question  is  whether  it  is  manifested  lower  down. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  mechanical  cause  is  evidently  mani- 
fested, and  reigns  alone  (at  least  as  far  as  appears)  in  the 
inorganic  sphere ;  the  question  is  whether  this  kind  of  cause 
suffices  higher  up. 

Between  the  psychological  and  the  inorganic  domains 
extends  the  domain  of  the  living  organism  —  that  is,  yet  once 
more,  the  tourney-ground  of  the  two  causalities,  the  two 
modes  of  explanation.  Can  all  that  is  below  and  outside  the 
subjective  and  psychological  domain  admit  of  teleological 
explanations?  Reciprocally,  can  all  that  is  above  geometric 
forms  and  laws  be  explained  by  mechanism  alone  ? 

Let  us  admit,  with  the  previous  hypothesis,  that  mechanism 
suffices  to  explain  the  production  of  organs — that  is,  let  us 


178  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER   VI. 

consider  the  functions  as  the  results  of  the  ( rgans,  and  the 
formation  of  the  organs  as  the  result  of  the  laws  of  living- 
nature,  modified  by  external  causes.  Let  us  suppose,  in  a 
word,  that  there  is  no  end,  either  general  or  partial,  in  the- 
organism.  If  this  mode  of  explanation  is  sufficient,  it  should 
be  able  to  mount  higher.  Now,  we  must  not  forget  that  we 
liave  shown  the  continuous  and  gradual  analogy  which  exists- 
between  the  formation  of  the  organs  and  function  in  general, 
between  function  and  instinct,  between  instinct  and  intel- 
ligence, between  animal  intelligence  and  human  intelligence  , 
in  fine,  between  the  intelligence  of  other  men  and  that  of  each 
one  of  us.  In  virtue  of  this  series  of  analogies,  the  same 
kind  of  causes  explaining  the  formation  of  organs  ought  to  be 
able  to  explain  all  the  other  subsequent  phenomena,  up  to  and 
including  human  intelligence.  If  this  analogical  reasoning- 
be  disputed  with  us,  let  us  not  forget  that  mechanism  itself 
has  no  other  mode  of  reasoning ;  for  between  crystallization 
and  organization  there  is  only,  after  all,  a  remote  analogy. 

We  shall  say,  then,  and  we  ought  to  say,  that  instinct  has^ 
no  end  any  more  than  any  other  function,  —  that  instinctive 
industry,  quite  as  well  as  organic  industry,  is  only  a  chain  of 
phenomena,  issuing  from  each  other  by  way  of  consequence, 
without  any  of  them  having  ever  been  foreseen  either  by  the 
animal  or  by  the  cause,  whatever  it  be,  that  has  formed  the 
animal.  We  shall  say  that  instinct,  as  well  as  all  the  other 
functions,  is  a  simple  result  of  organization,  and  that  the 
organization  itself  which  has  produced  this  or  that  instinct 
is  only  the  effect  of  the  meeting  of  certain  causes  and  of 
the  unconscious  reaction  of  physical  agents.  And,  in  fact,  if 
it  can  be  admitted  that  agents  not  directed,  not  co-ordinated, 
can  have  met,  in  obedience  to  physical  and  chemical  laws,  in 
a  way  so  fortunate  as  to  produce  the  circulatory  system  of 
the  vertebrate  animals,  why  should  it  not  be  admitted  that  a 
similar  meeting,  or  a  succession  of  fortunate  coincidences,  may 
have  produced  certain  automatic  combinations  from  whence 
miffht  result  the  instinctive  actions  that  astonish  us?     For  it 


MECHANISM  AND  FINALITY.  179 

is  not  more  difficult  for  a  blind  nature  to  product  organs 
resulting  in  the  act  of  weaving  or  building,  than  to  construct 
those  resulting  in  the  act  of  flying,  swimming,  or  running,  or 
those,  in  fine,  resulting  in  the  act  of  breathing  or  digesting. 

Thus  all,  even  unconscious  finality,  will  have  to  be  ex- 
cluded b}'  hypothesis  from  instinct  as  well  as  from  every 
other  organic  function.  Let  us  well  understand  ourselves. 
The  question  here  is  of  an  absolute  exclusion,  and  not  an 
apparent  exclusion,  as  too  often  happens.  Often,  in  fact, 
after  having  nominally  excluded  final  causes,  one  resumes 
them  without  perceiving  it,  by  attributing  to  living  nature 
a  spontaneous  property  of  accommodation  and  adaptation, 
which  is  nothing  else  than  finality  itself  under  another 
name.  For  to  say  that  it  is  a  law  of  organized  matter  spon- 
taneously to  find  the  best  combination  for  its  preservation 
and  growth,  is  precisely  to  attribute  to  it  an  essential  innate 
instinct,  which  implies  an  obscure  foresight  of  the  end,  and 
ar.  unconscious  yet  precise  choice  of  the  means.  That  that 
is  an  incomprehensible  hypothesis  I  do  not  deny.  It  is  the 
hypothesis  of  those  who,  whether  expressly  or  by  implication, 
preserve  finality,  while  suppressing  every  intelligent  cause. 
But,  incomprehensible  or  not,  this  hypothesis  preserves  and 
recognises  the  only  thing  that  we  have  to  defend  at  present, 
namely,  the  existence  of  ends  in  nature.  Yet  once  more,  it 
is  necessary  that  men  understand  themselves.  The  hypothesis 
of  pure  mechanism,  if  it  knows  what  it  means  to  say,  ex- 
cludes ever}^  species  of  finality,  and  that  quite  as  well  in  the 
explanation  of  instincts  as  in  that  of  functions.  Men  must 
needs  be  ready  to  say  that  an  unknown  physical  cause  has 
produced  this  happy  combination,  whence  results  the  bee's 
art  or  the  bird's  song. 

But  if  men  hope  to  elude  the  difficulty  in  explaining 
instinct  by  habit,  hereditary  or  not,  a  hypothesis  we  will  meet 
again  elsewhere,  they  lay  themselves  open  to  this  question  : 
Is  habit  itself  anything  else  than  an  instinct?  Habit,  in 
fact,  is  a  faculty  proper  to  organized  nature ;  it  is  not  met 


180  BOOK   I.   CHAPTER   VI. 

with  in  inorganic  beings.  '  In  vain  one  throws  a  stone,'  says- 
Aristotle  ;  '  it  does  not  assume  the  habit  of  remaining  sus- 
pended.' If,  in  fine,  habit  in  its  turn  admits  of  being 
mechanically  explained,  we  return  precisely  to  what  we  said, 
namely,  that  there  may  be  such  a  fortunate  mechanical  cause 
as  whether  immediately  or  by  degrees,  and  by  a  series  of 
favourable  modifications,  produces  at  last  what  so  resembles 
an  art  or  industry  as  to  be  mistaken  for  it,  but  which  is  only 
in  reality  a  purely  automatic  combination. 

If,  however,  such  an  automatic  combination  may  sufiice  to 
explain  the  instinctive  actions  of  animals,  why  should  it  not 
sufiice  to  explain  the  actions  of  their  intellect  or  passions  ? 
And  what  right  should  we  have  to  suppose,  by  analogy  with 
ourselves,  that  the  animals  are  endued  with  intellect  and  pas- 
sion? If  the  analogy  we  have  mentioned  between  the  industry 
of  nature  in  the  construction  of  living  organs,  and  human 
industry  in  the  construction  of  inert  machines,  be  contested,. 
why  should  the  very  remote  analogy  subsisting  between 
animal  and  human  actions  be  appealed  to  ?  There  is 
decidedly  more  difference  between  the  supposed  intelligence 
of  a  dog  and  that  of  Newton,  than  there  is  between  a  lens- 
and  the  crystalline,  a  camera  obscura  and  the  eye,  a  pump 
and  the  heart  in  vertebrates.  For  here,  if  there  is  a  difference 
from  the  point  of  view  of  art,  it  is  in  favour  of  the  living^ 
machine,  and  yet  men  will  not  see  any  art  in  it ;  and,  on 
the  contrary,  when  a  dog  barks,  they  will  have  this  barking 
to  be  the  analogue  of  the  articulate  voice,  and  to  correspond, 
like  the  latter,  with  some  internal  sense  ;  as  if  nature,  in  those 
happy  freaks  which  are  constantly  invoked,  could  not  have 
created  by  chance  a  barking  machine  —  a  surprising  toy,  as 
Descartes  regarded  it,  having  only  a  very  superficial  resem- 
blance to  a  sentient  and  intelligent  creature. 

In  order  to  combat  the  Cartesian  automatism,  the  actions 
of  animals  are  instanced,  so  like,  it  is  said,  to  those  of  man, 
and  th?  intelligence  of  the  animals  is  inferred.  But  this  is 
to  see  only  one  side  of  things.     The  intelligent  actions  of 


MECHANISM  AND  FINALITY.  18? 

animals  very  remotely  resemble  those  of  man,  but  they  much 
more  resemble  the  instinctive  actions  of  these  animals  them- 
selves ;  and  nothing  is  more  difficult  than  to  separate  exactly 
these  two  domains  —  that  of  intelligence  and  that  of  instinct. 
Now  we  have  seen  that  the  operations  of  instinct  themselves 
differ  in  nothing  essential  from  the  functional  operations  of 
the  living  machine,  and,  in  particular,  from  that  essential 
operation  of  the  living  being  which  consists  in  the  construc- 
tion of  its  organs.  If,  then,  a  simple  agency  of  physical 
causes,  without  any  foresight,  express  or  implicit,  can  explain 
how  living  nature  succeeds  in  accomplishing  the  series  of 
delicate  and  complicated  operations  which  terminate  in  the 
structure  of  an  organ,  why  should  not  the  same  mechanical 
agencies  produce  a  freak,  no  doubt  more  complicated,  but  not 
essentially  different  —  that  of  an  animal  that  has  the  air  of 
feeling,  thinking,  and  willing,  without  possessing  any  of  these 
faculties?  And  if  one  is  warranted  to  urge  against  the  hy- 
pothesis of  Descartes,  that  that  would  be  a  very  strange  freak 
on  the  part  of  a  creator  sovereignly  wise,  who  would  seem  to- 
wish  to  amuse  himself  thus  at  our  expense,  this  is  not  an 
objection  against  a  blind  nature  that  knows  not  what  it  is 
doing,  and  that  can  by  chance  produce  toys  quite  as  well  as 
volcanoes  and  rocks.  And  if,  protesting  against  this  materi- 
alistic automatism,  a  vital  agent  is  invoked,  —  vital  properties, 
and  I  know  not  what  besides,  more  or  less  vital,  —  I  reply 
that  men  don't  know  what  they  say,  or  they  ought  to  under- 
stand that  what  would  precisely  distinguish  any  vital  from 
every  inert  agent  would  just  be  to  be  fit  to  co-ordinate  organic 
materials  after  a  plan,  which  would  be  to  relapse  into  the 
very  hypothesis  which  it  is  wished  to  set  aside. 

I  say,  then,  that  mechanism  cannot  urge  any  serious  objec- 
tion against  the  automatism  of  the  beasts ;  but  the  sam& 
mechanism  ought  to  go  much  farther  still,  and  ought  not  to 
recoil  even  from  the  automatism  of  men  —  I  mean  automatism 
in  the  strict  sense,  namely,  a  mechanism  purely  material, 
without  intelligence,  passion,  or  Avill.     If  the  animal  is  only 


182  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  VI. 

a  machine,  why  should  other  men  be  anything  for  us  but 
machines?  And  here  the  question  is  not  about  the  man- 
machine  of  Lamettrie,  which  thinks  and  feels  like  us,  but 
about  a  man-machine  which,  like  Vaucauson's  automaton, 
could  neither  think  nor  feel  in  any  way.  After  all,  what 
proof  have  we  that  other  men  are  intelligent  like  our- 
selves ?  None  positively  exact.  For  we  onl}^  know  ourselves 
immediately  —  we  have  never  directly  discovered  intelli- 
gence in  other  men.  It  is  only,  then,  by  induction,  and 
without  any  direct  experience,  that  we  assume  in  other  men  a 
mind  and  an  intelligence  as  well  as  in  ourselves.  There  is, 
no  doubt,  a  wonderful  resemblance  between  other  men  and 
ourselves  ;  but  there  is  also  a  wonderful  resemblance  between 
the  industry  of  nature  and  human  industry.  Now,  if  a 
•combination  of  causes  can  have  produced,  without  any  art, 
what  so  closely  resembles  art,  why  could  it  not  have  produced, 
equally  without  any  intelligence,  what  would  as  closely 
resemble  intelligence?  The  hypothesis  is  not  so  absurd, 
since  there  really  are  cases  in  which  men  act  automatically 
.and  unconsciously,  as  if  they  really  were  intelligent  —  for 
instance,  cases  of  somnambulism  or  of  dementia.  The  theory 
of  reflex  actions  also  shows  us  that  the  same  things  may  be 
done  at  one  time  under  the  influence  of  the  will,  at  another 
under  the  influence  of  purely  mechanical  actions.  Conse- 
•quently  it  is  not  absurd  to  generalize  the  hypothesis;  and 
«ne  cannot  see  why  the  theory  of  happy  chances  should  stop 
half-way.  On  this  theory,  accident  —  that  is,  the  product  of 
all  the  favourable  chances  —  has  been  quite  able  to  produce  an 
organ  suited  for  singing  ;  why  should  it  not  produce  an  organ 
fitted  for  speech?  And  why  could  not  this  organ  be  modi- 
fied by  exercise  and  imitation,  like  that  of  the  parrot?  Why 
sliould  it  not  become  fitted  to  vary  the  production  of  sounds? 
Why  should  not  this  reproduction  of  sounds,  determined  by 
external  circumstances,  come  to  imitate  certain  intelligent 
combinations?  as,  for  instance,  it  is  the  case  that  one  can  teach 
an  idiot  in  certain  circumstances  a  phrase  whose  meaning  he 


MECHANISM  AND  FINALITY.  183 

does  not  understand.  Multiply  the  happy  circumstances,  and 
the  chances  of  combination,  and  see  whether  it  is  impossible 
to  refer  to  chance  the  formation  of  an  organism  resembling 
ours  so  as  to  be  taken  for  it,  manifesting  entirely  similar 
action,  but  which  would  only  be  a  fiction  —  an  automaton  in 
which  not  a  single  phenomenon  could  be  discovered  having 
an  end,  and  which  would  consequently  be  destitute  of  all 
intelligence.  Let  a  point  be  fixed  where,  theoretically,  the 
hypothesis  of  pure  automatism  would  become  strictly  impos- 
sible.^ No  doubt  such  a  hypothesis  shocks  common  sense, 
but  they  protest  against  the  competency  of  common  sense  in 
these  matters  —  the  right  is  refused  it  of  interfering  in  natural 
philosophy  ;  the  analogies  are  found  ridiculous  which  common 
sense  has  always  recognised  between  human  art  and  the  art 
of  nature.  And  yet  let  the  attempt  be  made  to  find  in 
support  of  the  intelligence  of  our  fellow-men  other  reasons 
than  those  of  common  sense.  It  is  agreed  that  there  comes 
a  moment  when  the  combinations  become  so  complicated  that 
it  is  impossible,  \vithout  too  shocking  absurdity,  not  to  sup- 
pose a  co-ordination  towards  an  end.  How  many  combina- 
tions, then,  of  this  kind  are  needed  to  make  such  an 
induction  valid? 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  appealing  to  the  extreme  resem- 
blance of  man  to  man,  the  right  be  assumed  to  conclude  from 
one's  own  intelligence  to  intelligence  in  other  men,  and  from 
human  intelligence  to  the  intelligence  of  the  animals,  let  them 
tell  us  at  what  precise  moment  this  argument,  drawn  from 

1  We  can  find  authority  for  this  apparently  extreme  hypothesis  in  the  testi- 
mony of  Leibnitz  {RipUqrie  aux  reflexions  de  Bayle:  Opera philosophica,  pp. 
183,  ISi,  ed.  Erdmann):  '  There  is  no  doubt  that  a  man  could  make  a  machine 
capable  of  walking  for  some  time  through  a  town,  and  of  correctly  turning  at 
the  corners  of  certain  streets.  .  .  .  There  is  only  a  more  or  less,  which  signify 
nothing  iu  the  region  of  possibilities.  .  .  .  Those  who  show  the  Cartesians  that 
their  way  of  proving  that  the  brutes  are  automata  would  justify  him  who 
should  say  that  all  other  men  except  himself  are  simple  automata  also,  have 
justly  and  precisely  said  what  I  mean.*  Descartes  has  foreseen  the  objection  in 
the  Disrours  de  la  methode  (part  v.);  but  his  answer  precisely  proves  that  there 
is  on'y  a  difference  of  less  or  more.  See  also  Diderot,  Pens^es  philosophiqiies, 
■X.X..  and  Reid,  (Euvre^,  t.  iv.  trad.  fran?.  p.  177. 


184  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  VI. 

analogy,  will  become  ineffectual  and  impotent.  If  I  have 
the  right  to  suppose  that  the  animal  pursues  an  end  when  it 
combines  the  means  of  self-preservation  and  of  self-defence, 
why  might  I  not  suppose,  with  the  same  right,  that  living 
nature  has  also  pursued  an  end,  when,  as  wise  as  the  animal, 
she  has  prepared  for  it  the  organs  which  are  for  it  the  fittest 
means  to  attain  that  end? 

I  add  that,  even  were  this  striking  analogy  disputed,  and 
all  finalitj^  in  living  nature  denied,  not  much  progress  would 
thus  be  made  from  the  moment  the  existence  of  intelligent 
beings  had  been  granted,  —  and  one  is  indeed  forced  to  admit 
at  least  one,  namely,  myself,  —  for  each  one,  as  Descartes  has 
said,  only  knows  that  he  exists  because  he  knows  that  he 
thinks.  Now,  doubtless,  the  intelligent  being,  at  least,  is 
capable  of  acting  for  ends,  of  setting  an  end  before  him, 
consequently  of  self-determination  by  the  final  cause.  The 
question  is  this,  How,  in  a  nature  without  an  end,  does  there 
appear  all  at  once  a  being  capable  of  pursuing  an  end  ?  This 
capacity,  it  is  said,  is  the  product  of  his  organization.  But  how 
should  an  organization,  which  by  hypothesis  would  only  be 
a  result  of  physical  causes  happily  introduced,  give  birth  to  a 
product  such  that  the  being  thus  formed  could  divine,  foresee, 
calculate,  prepare  means  for  ends?  To  this  point  the  series 
of  phenomena  has  only  followed  the  descending  course,  that 
which  goes  from  cause  to  effect ;  all  that  is  produced  is 
produced  by  the  past,  without  being  in  any  way  determined, 
modified,  or  regulated  by  the  necessities  of  the  future.  All 
at  once,  in  this  mechanical  series,  is  produced  a  being  that 
changes  all,  that  transports  into  the  future  the  cause  of  the 
present  —  that  is  capable,  for  instance,  having  beforeliand  the 
idea  of  a  town,  to  collect  stones  conformably  to  mechanical 
laws,  yet  so  that  at  a  given  moment  they  may  form  a  town. 
He  is  able  to  dig  the  earth,  so  as  to  guide  the  course  of  rivers ; 
to  replace  forests  by  crops  of  grain  ;  to  bend  iron  to  his  use 
—  in  a  word,  to  regulate  the  evolution  of  natural  phenomena 
in  such  a  way  that  the  series  of  these  phenomena  may  be 


MECHANISM  AND   FINALITY.  185 

dominated  by  a  future  predetermined  phenomenon.  This  is 
indeed,  it  must  be  confessed,  a  final  cause.  Well,  then,  can 
it  be  conceived  that  the  agent  thus  endowed  with  the  power 
of  co-ordinating  nature  for  ends,  is  himself  a  simple  result 
that  nature  has  realized  without  proposing  to  itself  an  end  ? 
Is  it  not  a  sort  of  miracle  to  admit  into  the  mechanical  series 
of  phenomena  a  link  which  suddenly  should  have  the  power 
to  reverse,  in  some  sort,  the  order  of  the  series,  and  which, 
being  itself  only  a  consequent  resulting  from  an  infinite 
number  of  antecedents,  should  henceforth  impose  on  the 
series  this  new  and  unforeseen  law,  which  makes  of  the  , 
consequent  the  law  and  rule  of  the  antecedent?  ' 

Here  is  the  place  to  say,  with  Bossuet :  '  One  cannot  com- 
prehend, in  this  whole  that  does  not  understand,  this  part  ; 
that  does,  for  intelligence  cannot  originate  from  a  brute  and  \ 
insensate  thing.'  ^  ' 

I  do  not  know  whether  the  mechanical  philosophy  has  ever 
taken  account  of  the  diflficulty  of  this  problem.  It  finds  it 
quite  natural  that  the  brain  thinks,  for  experience  shows 
it  thought  everywhere  associated  with  a  brain.  But  leaving 
aside  the  speculative  question  whether  matter  can  think  (a 
problem  which  does  not  belong  to  our  subject),  is  it  not 
evident  that  for  a  brain  to  think,  it  behoves  to  be  organized 
in  the  wisest  manner,  and  that  the  more  complicated  this 
organization,  the  more  probable  is  it  that  the  result  of  the 
combinations  of  matter  will  be  disordered  and  consequently 
unfit  for  thought? 

Thought,  in  whatever  manner  explained,  is  an  order,  a 
system,  a  regular  and  harmonious  combination ;  it  is  a  system 
all  the  elements  of  which  behove  to  be  co-ordinated  in  order 
to  form  a  whole.  Without  this  co-ordination  the  accumula- 
tion of  ideas  or  sensations  forms  no  thought.  Wherever  there 
is  not  a  subject  and  an  attribute ;  wherever  the  conclusions 
are  not  contained  in  the  premises ;  wherever  the  induction  is 
not  founded  on  similar  well-observed  facts ;  wherever  the  fore- 

1  Connaissance  de  Dieu  et  de  soi-nieme,  chap.  iv. 


186  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER   VI. 

sight  of  the  future  is  not  connected  with  a  solid  experience 
of  the  past,  there  is  only  the  shadow  of  thought,  but  thought 
itself  is  absent.  This  is  what  occurs  in  madness,  dreaming, 
delirium,  and  all  similar  states.  Thus,  even  by  admitting  the 
brain  as  substratum  of  thought,  the  difficulty  of  the  problem 
has  not  been  diminished;  for  the  question  always  is,  how 
blind  matter,  without  plan  and  witliout  end,  can  have  co- 
ordinated its  diverse  parts  so  as  to  form  an  organ  so  delicate 
that  the  least  disorder  suffices  to  interrupt  its  functions.  If 
matter,  submissive  alone  to  physical  laws,  had  formed  the 
organ  of  thought,  it  seems  that  madness  ought  to  have  been 
the  rule,  and  reason  the  exception ;  for  what  a  miracle  it  is 
that  all  these  sentient  and  vibrating  cells,  of  which  the  cere- 
bral organ  is  said  to  be  composed,  should  so  accord  with  each 
other  and  with  the  external  world  that  the  result  of  all  these 
movements  is  a  thought  agreeing  with  itself  and  with  the 
external  world ! 

The  old  argument  upon  the  chance  throw  of  the  twenty- 
four  letters  of  the  alphabet,  which  never  could  have  produced 
the  Iliad,  is  considered  frivolous  and  popular,^  but  it  cannot 
be  dissembled  that  this  hypothesis  is  strictly  that  which 
dogmatic  materialists  ought  to  accept  and  defend.  In  fact, 
the  Iliad  is  nothing  else  than  a  particular  act  of  the  human 
intellect,  which  has  accomplished  thousands  of  others  not  less 
astonishing,  were  it  only  the  discovery  of  the  system  of  the 
world  and  its  laws.  Thus  art,  science,  indn.stry,  all  human 
works,  are  only,  in  short,  the  applications  of  intellect.  That 
these  innumerable  applications  might  become  possible,  it  has 
been  necessary  that  millions  of  living  and  sentient  cells,  only 
obeying,  like  printers'  types,  physical  and  chemical  laws, 
without  any  relation  or  resemblance  to  what  we  call  intellect, 
should  be  assembled  in  such  an  order  that  not  only  the  Iliad, 
but  all  the  miracles  of  the  human  intellect  should  become 


1  On  the  worth  of  this  argument  see  farther  on,  Book  II.  chap,  i.,  and 
Charpentier,  M^moire  sur  la  lorjiqiie  du  probable  ('Comptes-rendus  de  I'Acad. 
des  Sc.  Morales,  avril-inai  1875'). 


MECHANISM  AND   FINALITY.  187 

possible.  F  jr  if  these  cells,  in  their  blind  dance,  had  taken 
some  other  direction,  some  other  motion,  —  if,  in  place  of  mov- 
ing in  unison,  their  rhythm  had  occurred  alternately,  if  the 
least  derangement  had  taken  place  in  their  situations  or  re- 
spective reactions,  —  not  reason,  but  madness,  as  experience 
shows,  would  have  been  the  result ;  for  it  is  known  that  the 
least  blow  given  to  the  equilibrium  of  the  brain  suffices  to 
undo  its  springs  and  arrest  its  play. 

We  know  nothing,  absolutely  nothing,  of  the  cerebral 
mechanism  which  presides  over  the  development  of  thought, 
nor  of  the  play  of  that  mechanism.  But  what  we  know  for 
certain  is  that  that  mechanism  must  be  extremely  compli- 
cated, or,  at  least,  that  if  it  is  simple,  it  can  only  be  a  wise 
simplicity,  the  result  of  profound  art.  Whether  this  very 
art  be  the  act  of  an  intelligence  similar  to  that,  the  mystery 
of  which  we  are  investigating,  we  will  not  now  inquire  here. 
All  that  we  wish  to  establish  is,  that  without  a  predestina- 
tion (whatever  be  its  cause)  ;  without  a  sort  of  foresight,  in- 
stinctive or  reflective,  immanent  or  transcendent ;  without  a 
certain  hidden  cause  (which  we  purposely  leave  undetermined 
for  the  present),  but  of  which  it  is  the  essential  character  to 
be  induced  to  act  by  the  effect  to  be  attained,  and  not  merely 
by  predetermining  causes,  — without  such  a  cause,  in  a  word, 
the  structure  of  the  brain,  of  which  it  can  be  said,  as  Aristotle 
(^De  Animd,  1.  iii.  c.  8)  said  of  the  hand,  that  it  is  the  instru- 
ment of  instruments.,  would  be  absolutely  incomprehensible. 

It  is  impossible  to  dissemble  the  blunt  intervention  of 
chance  in  this  evolution  of  natural  phenomena,  which,  hith- 
erto governed  by  the  blind  laws  of  physics  and  of  chemistry, 
the  laws  of  gravity,  of  electricity,  of  affinities,  —  which  are 
all,  or  appear  to  be,  reducible  to  the  laws  of  motion,  —  is 
suddenly  co-ordained  into  thoughts,  reasonings,  poems,  sys- 
tems, inventions,  and  scientific  discoveries.  If  the  elements 
of  things  be  conceived  as  mobile  atoms,  moving  in  all  possible 
directions,  and  ending  by  lighting  on  such  a  happy  combina- 
tion as  results  in  a  planetary  globe,  a  solar  system,  or  an  or- 


188  BOOK  I.    CHAPTER  VI. 

ganized  body,  it  will  have  to  be  said  as  well  that  it  is  in  virtue 
of  a  happy  combination  that  the  atoms  have  ended  by  taking 
the  form  of  a  human  brain,  which,  by  the  mere  fact  of  that 
combination,  becomes  fit  for  thought.  Now  what  is  this  but 
to  say  that  letters  thrown  haphazard  might  form  the  Iliad  in 
their  successive  throws,  since  the  Iliad  itself  is  only  one  of 
the  phenomena  produced  by  the  thinking  activity?  But  the 
human  mind,  whether  in  the  arts  or  in  the  sciences,  has  pro- 
duced, and  will  produce,  similar  phenomena  without  end.  It 
would  not  then  be  a  single  verse,  a  single  poem,  it  would  be 
all  thought,  with  all  its  poems  and  all  its  inventions,  which 
would  be  the  result  of  a  happy  throw. 

If,  in  order  to  escape  this  brute  divinity  of  chance,  and  the 
extravagant  consequences  of  blind  mechanism,  vital  or  chemi- 
cal activity^  the  forces  of  nature,  the  laws  of  nature  were  ap- 
pealed to,  this  would  simply  be  to  grant,  under  a  vague  and 
unconscious,  that  is,  unphilosophical  form,  precisely  what  we 
ask.  For  either  these  activities,  forces,  and  laws  are  nothing 
but  brute  mechanism,  or  they  are  distinct  from  it.  In  the 
first  case,  nothing  has  been  done  but  to  cover  with  equivocal 
words  the  pure  doctrine  of  chance  which  we  oppose.  In  the 
second  case,  these  causes,  whatever  they  be,  whatever  be 
their  essence,  are  only  to  be  clearly  distinguished  from  brute 
mechanism  by  a  sort  of  blind  instinct  like  an  art,  which  makes 
them  find  at  once  and  without  hesitation  the  combination  best 
fitted  to  produce  a  given  effect.  If  something  of  this  kind 
be  not  thrown  into  the  scale  to  aid  the  action  of  the  natural 
forces,  if  there  be  not  attributed  to  them,  as  has  been  said, 
a  tendency^  an  internal  spring,  the  same  abyss  will  always 
present  itself — namely,  blind  forces,  which,  combining  under 
the  control  of  blind  laws,  give  birth  to  intelligent  action ;  as 
if,  for  instance,  madmen  and  idiots,  brought  into  contact  and 
excited  or  calmed  by  this  rencounter,  should  be  found  sud- 
denly to  produce  by  their  very  meeting  a  harmonious  and 
reasonable  whole.  And  yet  within  those  madmen  and  idiots 
there  is  a  secret  reason,  which  contact  or  sympathy  might 


MECHANISM  AND   FINALITY.  189 

conceivab  .y  awaken  for  a  moment ;  but  among  chemical 
molecules  there  is,  by  hypothesis,  no  hidden  reason.  And 
this  would  be  yet  once  more  a  true  miracle,  and  a  miracle 
without  an  author,  that  thought  should  suddenly  originate 
from  what  is  not  thought. 

In  order  to  diminish  the  horror  of  such  a  prodigy,  it  will 
be  supposed  that  the  molecules  of  which  organized  beings 
are  composed  are  perhaps  themselves  endued  with  a  dull 
sensibility,  and  are  capable,  as  Leibnitz  believed,  of  certain 
obscure  perceptions,  of  which  the  sensibility  of  living  beings 
is  only  the  growth  and  development.  I  shall  answer  that 
this  hypothesis,  besides  being  entirely  gratuitous  and  conjec- 
tural, after  all  grants  more  than  we  ask ;  for,  sensation  being 
only  the  first  degree  of  thought,  to  say  that  all  things  are 
endued  with  sensation  is  to  say  that  all  is,  to  a  certain  ex- 
tent, endued  with  thought.  '  All  is  full  of  God,'  said  Thales. 
All  nature  becomes  living  and  sensible.  Neither  sensation 
nor  thought  is  any  longer  the  result  of  mechanism.  Sensa- 
tion being  inseparable  from  desire,  desire  itself  implying  a 
certain  vague  consciousness  of  its  end,  a  certain  tendency 
towards  an  end  is  thus  attributed  even  to  the  elements  of 
matter,  and  a  certain  perception  of  the  means  which  lead  to 
it.  In  a  word,  the  hypothesis  of  an  original  and  innate  sen- 
sibility, inherent  in  matter,  is  nothing  else  than  the  hypoth- 
esis of  finality  itself.  And  still,  in  this  hypothesis,  the 
rencounter  and  combination  of  these  sentient  molecules  would 
need  to  be  explained,  the  resulting  harmony,  the  agreement 
of  these  various  sensibilities ;  for  it  is  not  enough  that  two 
instruments  be  sonorous  in  order  to  produce  a  concert :  left 
to  themselves,  and  tried  by  an  inexperienced  hand,  they  will 
never  yield  anything  but  a  discord. 

To  sum  up.  It  follows  from  the  preceding  discussion, 
that  the  mechanical  hypothesis  fully  carried  out  leads  —  1st, 
To  the  violation  of  all  the  laws  of  analogical  reasoning,  by 
forcing  us  even  to  call  in  question  the  existence  of  intelli- 
gence in  other  men;  2d,  To  a  violation  of  all  the  laws  of 


190  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  VI. 

science,  by  forcing  us  to  acknowledge  an  absolate  hiatus 
between  all  the  phenomena  of  nature  and  the  intelligence  of 
man ;  3d,  To  a  contradiction,  because  it  is  forcibly  arrested 
in  presence  of  a  last  case,  the  human  intelligence,  and  con- 
sequently it  is  constrained,  at  least  in  this  case,  to  recognise 
finality,  which  should  suffice  for  the  demonstration.  Such 
are  the  disadvantages  of  the  mechanical  hypothesis  when  it 
would  rise  above  purely  physical  phenomena. 

Let  us  now  see  whether  the  teleological  hypothesis  would 
have  the  same  disadvantages  if  it  should  desire  to  redescend 
beneath  its  natural  limit. 

We  have  said  that  the  battlefield  of  the  two  theories  is  the 
y  domain  of  the  organism.  All  that  is  above,  that  is  to  say,  the 
world  of  intelligence,  belongs  of  right  to  teleology ;  whatever 
is  beneath,  namely,  the  world  of  brute  matter,  naturally  be- 
longs, so  far  as  appears,  to  mechanism ;  the  middle  space  is 
the  object  of  debate.  This  middle  space  apart,  let  us  ask 
what  is  the  position  of  each  hypothesis  when,  clearing  this 
contested  territory,  they  endeavour  to  invade  their  respective 
domains. 

Below  organic  phenomena,  explanation  by  final  cause 
ceases  perhaps  to  be  necessary,  that  is,  to  be  required  by  the 
habitudes  of  the  mind ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  never 
absurd,  never  contrary  to  the  laws  of  reasoning,  logical  or 
analogical.  I  am  not,  perhaps,  obliged  to  explain  the  motions 
of  the  stars  by  the  final  cause,  but  there  is  nothing  irrational 
in  doing  so ;  for,  although  order  does  not  perhaps  always 
imply  finality,  it  is  also  true  that  it  never  excludes  it. 

On  the  other  hand,  whatever  department  of  the  universe 
we  contemplate,  it  may  be  said  that  the  mechanical  explana- 
tion is  always  necessary,  in  this  sense,  that  the  chain  of  effi- 
cient causes  is  never  broken  (the  problem  of  liberty  apart)  ; 
even  in  the  intelligence,  there  are  always  causes  and  effects. 
On  the  other  hand,  if  this  hj'pothesis  is  always  necessary,  it 
is  insufficient  beyond  its  own  limits ;  and  this  insufficiency 
goes   the   length   of  absurdity  when   it  pretends   to   reign 


MECHANISM  AND   FINAIJTY.  191 

alone,  to  the  exclusion  of  the  rival  hypothesis,  in  the  domain 
proper  to  the  latter. 

Here,  then,  is  a  hypothesis  which  remains  necessary  at  all 
stages,  but  which  beyond  a  certain  limit  becomes  absurd  when 
it  is  exclusive ;  on  the  other  hand  we  have  a  hypothesis  which, 
below  a  certain  limit  is  not  perhaps  necessary,  but  which  is- 
never  absurd. 

If,  now,  you  consider  that  the  first  excludes  the  second,, 
while  the  second  does  not  exclude  the  first,  it  is  evident  that 
the  second  will  have  a  very  great  advantage. 

Thus  while  it  is  truly  absurd  to  say  that  other  men  are 
without  intelligence,  —  a  strict  consequence  of  pure  mechan- 
ism,—  it  is,  on  the  other  hand,  in  no  way  absurd  to  say  that 
the  physical  and  inorganic  world  has  been  subjected  to  the 
laws  which  govern  it  in  order  to  render  possible  the  pres- 
ence of  life,  and  life  itself  in  order  to  render  possible  the 
presence  of  humanity,  and,  in  fine,  to  conceive  the  whole- 
universe  as  a  vast  system  subject  to  a  plan. 

Let  us  take  up,  then,  from  this  point  of  view,  the  physical 
and  mechanical  sphere,  which  we  have  hitherto  left  outside' 
the  range  of  our  studies. 

The  reason  why  final  causes  will  always  be  sought  by 
preference  in  the  sphere  of  living  beings  is,  that  there  alone 
a  fact  is  met  with  which  may  be  considered  as  having  a 
veritable  interest^  and  which  may  consequently  be  an  end  — 
namely,  sensibility.  There  only,  where  the  possession,  the 
preservation  of  being  is  felt,  can  existence  be  considered  as 
a  good,  and  consequently  as  an  end  to  which  a  system  of 
means  is  subordinated.  What  does  it  really  matter  to  a 
crystal  to  be  or  not  to  be?  What  does  it  matter  to  it 
whether  it  have  eight  angles  in  place  of  twelve,  or  be  organ- 
ized geometrically  rather  than  in  any  other  way  ?  Existence 
having  no  value  for  it,  why  should  nature  have  taken  means 
to  secure  it  ?  Why  should  it  have  been  at  the  expense  of 
a  plan  and  a  system  of  combinations  to  produce  a  result 
without  value  for  any  one,  at  least  in  the  absence  of  living 


192  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  VI. 

beings  ?  So,  again,  however  beautiful  the  sidereal  and  plane  • 
tary  order  may  be,  what  matters  this  beauty,  this  order,  to 
the  stars  themselves  that  know  nothing  of  it  ?  And  if  you 
say  that  this  fair  order  was  constructed  to  be  admired  by 
men,  or  that  God  might  therein  contemplate  His  glory,  it  is 
evident  that  an  end  can  only  be  given  to  these  objects  by 
going  out  of  themselves,  by  passing  them  by,  and  rising 
a,bove  their  proper  system.  No  doubt  it  is  the  same  as 
regards  living  beings,  if  one  would  rise  to  the  absolute  end, 
the  final  and  last  end ;  but  in  themselves  and  for  themselves 
they  have  already  a  sufficient  though  relative  end,  namely, 
to  exist  and  to  feel  it :  this  is  for  them  a  good,  and  one  can 
understand  that  nature  has  taken  precautions  to  assure  it  to 
them.     It  is  not  the  same  with  inorganic  beings. 

But  if  inorganic  beings  have  not  an  end  in  themselves,  it 
is  not  at  all  improbable  that  they  may  have  one  outside  of 
them.  '  Why  do  bodies  exist  ? '  said  Ampere.  '  In  order 
to  furnish  thoughts  to  minds.'  ^  The  Indian  philosophers 
■expressed  the  same  thought  in  a  charming  and  original 
form :  '  Nature,'  said  they,  '  resembles  a  dancer  who  only 
asks  to  be  seen,  and  who  disappears  immediately  after  the 
applause.'  ^  In  fine,  living  beings  are  bodies,  and  these 
bodies  need  other  bodies  in  order  to  subsist.  Mechanical 
and  physical  nature,  which  has  not  its  end  in  itself,  may 
therefore  be  made  dependent  on  living  nature  as  an  end. 
We  are  thus  brought  to  the  notion  of  external  or  relative 
finality,  too  much  sacrificed  by  Kant  to  internal  finality.^ 

It  is  strange  that  it  did  not  strike  Kant  from  this  point 
of  view  that  internal  finality  is  in  reality  inseparable  from 
external,  and  cannot  be  understood  without  it.  The  organ- 
ized being,  in  fact,  is  not  self-sufficient,  and  it  only  exists  by 

1  Philosophie  d' Ampere,  Paris  1866,  ji.  184. 

2  B.  St.  Hilaire,  M^moires  sur  la  Sankhya,  M^moives  de  I'Acapi^mie  des  So. 
Morales  et  Polit.  t.  -viii.  p.  332.     See  appendix,  Dissertation  IX. 

s  External  or  relative  finality  is  the  utility  of  a  thing  for  another  thing; 
internal  finality  is  the  respective  and  reciprocal  utility  of  the  various  parts  of 
one  and  the  same  being  for  each  other,  and  of  all  for  the  whole  being.  It  is 
in  this  sense  that  in  the  organized  being  all  is  at  once  '  end  and  means.' 


MECHANISM   AND   FINALITY.  193 

mean  s  of  the  medium  in  which  it  lives.  Nature,  then,  would 
have  done  an  absurd  thing,  if,  in  preparing  an  organism,  it  had 
not,  at  the  same  time,  prepared  besides  the  means  necessary 
for  that  organism  to  subsist.  Kant  characterises  internal 
finality  by  saying  that  a  production  of  organized  nature  is  at 
once  the  cause  and  effect  of  itself;  but  it  cannot  be  its  own 
cause  by  itself,  it  must  assimilate  external  objects  which  are 
proper  for  this  purpose.  It  is  not  stricMy  true  to  say,  as 
Cuvier  does,  that  the  organized  being  is  '  a  closed  system.' 
If  it  were  so,  nothing  would  enter,  nothing  would  come  out ; 
but  that  is  not  life,  it  is  death,  for  death  takes  place  precisely 
at  the  moment  when  all  exchange  between  the  interior  and 
the  exterior  ceases. 

If  these  considerations  are  just,  how  could  internal  finality 
be  maintained,  without  admitting  at  the  same  time  an  external 
finality  which  is  its  counterpart?  How  could  it  be  said  that 
nature  has  made  the  herbivora  to  eat  grass,  without  admitting 
that  the  same  nature  has  made  the  grass  to  be  eaten  by  the 
herbivora?  Cuvier  has  said:  'Wherever  there  are  spiders, 
there  are  flies :  wherever  there  are  swallows,  there  are  insects.' 
A  nature  that  should  make  herbivora  without  having  made 
grass  would  be  an  absurd  nature.  But  nature  has  not  com- 
mitted this  absurdity.  Having  made  herbivora,  it  has  made 
grass  ;  having  made  eyes,  it  has  made  light ;  ears,  it  has  made 
sound.  If  one  of  these  objects  has  been  made  to  enjoy  the 
other,  why  might  it  not  be  said  that  the  other  has  been  made, 
at  least  in  part  to  serve  or  refresh  the  first  ?  It  is  only  the 
difference  of  the  active  and  passive.  In  place  of  saying :  the 
lamb  has  been  made  in  order  to  he  eaten  by  the  wolf,  it  will 
be  said  :  the  wolf  has  been  made  in  order  to  eat  the  lamb.  No 
doubt,  as  regards  the  lamb,  to  be  eaten  is,  according  to  the 
scholastic  expression,  an  external  denomination  ;  it  is  not  for  it 
a  necessary  part  of  its  essence ;  it  can  accomplish  its  destiny 
without  that :  it  is  then,  as  regards  it,  only  an  accident,  and 
it  is  in  this  sense  that  external  finality  is  only  relative.  But 
this  accident,  in  so  far  as  it  forms  part  of  the  interoal  finality 


194  BOOK  I.   CHAPTER  VI. 

of  an  »ther  being,  becomes  in  its  turn  an  end  of  nature  ;  and 
it  may  be  said  that  it  is  one  of  the  views  that  it  has  had  in 
creating  the  lamb.  It  is  the  same  with  the  use  of  external 
things  for  human  industry.  No  doubt,  strictly  speaking,  it 
will  not  be  said  that  stones  have  been  made  in  order  to  build 
houses,  wood  to  make  furniture,  and  the  cork-tree  corks.  But 
it  will  be  very  correct  to  say  inversely  that  man,  being  an 
industrious  animal,  animal  instrumentificum,  endued  with  in- 
telligence, and  furnished  with  a  hand,  this  industrious  aptitude 
has  been  given  to  him  in  order  to  turn  to  his  use  the  things 
of  nature ;  whence  it  follows  reciprocally  that  the  things  of 
nature  have  been  made  in  order  to  be  turned  to  his  use.  And 
it  is  certain  that  the  industrial  aptitude  of  man  would  be  a 
contradiction  and  an  absurdity,  if  nothing  outside  had  been 
prepared  in  order  to  be  utilized  by  him ;  and  to  say,  in  fine,  that 
this  is  a  pure  rencounter,  would  now  be  not  merely  to  sacri- 
fice external  to  internal  finality,  it  would  be  to  return  to  the 
theory  of  chance,  which  absolutely  suppresses  every  final  cause. 

To  sum  up.  External  finality  is  the  counterpart  of  internal, 
and  the  one  is  as  necessary  as  the  other.  No  doubt,  external 
finality,  just  because  it  is  external,  is  not  written,  like  the 
other,  on  the  object  itself;  and  in  considering  an  object  of 
nature,  one  can  hardly  discover  in  it  a  priori  what  end  it 
can  subserve :  they  have  also  been  much  abused.^  It  is  in 
this  sense  that  it  may  be  rash,  as  Descartes  says,  to  seek  to 
sound  the  intentions  of  Providence.  But  physical  and  me- 
chanical things  being  in  a  general  manner  connected  with 
finality  by  their  relation  to  living  beings,  we  conceive  that 
there  may  thus  be  in  the  inorganic  world  a  general  interest  of 
order  and  stability,  conditions  of  security  for  the  living  being. 

It  is  true,  the  hypothesis  which  connects  external  with 
internal  finality,  and  the  inorganic  with  the  living  world, 
5eems  in  check  in  presence  of  this  difficulty,  that  life  has 
not  always  existed,  at  least  on  our  globe,  and  that  the 
number  of  ages  during  which  inorganic  matter  has  been 
1  On  the  abuses  of  final  causes,  see  the  appendix. 


MECHANISM  AN!     -^INALITY.  195 

prepared  for  life  has  considerably  surpassed,  accordiiig  to  all 
appearance,  the  number  of  ages  in  which  life  can  have  been 
produced  and  preserved.  If  living  beings  have  been  the  only- 
real  end  of  creation,  why  have  they  not  been  created  at  the 
very  first,  and  why  has  not  the  earth  from  the  very  first 
moment  been  found  fit  to  receive  them?  Besides,  it  seems 
clear  that  life  in  its  turn  is  not  indestructible.  We  see  in 
the  universe  a  globe  —  the  moon,  for  instance  —  in  which  life 
appears  to  have  ceased  to  exist,  if  it  has  ever  had  a  place 
there.  To  say  that  the  whole  universe  has  been  created  that 
life  might  appear  for  a  moment  on  the  humblest  of  its  globes, 
this  is  a  very  great  disproportion  between  means  and  end. 
The  prologue  and  epilogue  of  the  drama  appear  very  long  in 
relation  to  the  drama  itself.  Besides,  even  among  living 
beings,  at  least  the  half,  namely  the  vegetable  kingdom,  ap- 
pears as  insensible  as  the  mineral ;  and  if  it  enjoys  life,  it  is 
without  knowing  it.  In  fine,  the  dull  and  difiiised  sensibility 
of  the  lower  animals  is  hardly  worth  more  than  absolute 
insensibility.  What  matters  it  to  the  oyster  whether  it 
exist  or  not  ? 

It  is  absolutely  impossible  for  us  to  know  what  is  the 
proportion  in  the  universe  of  living  and  sentient  matter  to 
matter  not  living  and  not  sentient ;  it  is  not  by  the  extent 
of  space  or  time  that  the  value  of  things  ought  to  be  meas- 
ured. Pascal  has  rightly  said:  'We  depend  on  thought, 
not  on  space  and  duration.'  But  if  life  exists  throughout  the 
whole  universe,  which  is  not  at  all  impossible,  it  matters  little 
that  there  are  vast  amounts  of  time  or  space  that  are  deprived 
of  it.  It  is  no  more  astonishing  that  there  are  no  animals 
in  the  moon,  than  among  the  ices  of  the  North  or  in  the 
deserts  of  Africa.  These  vast  spaces  may  be  magazines, 
stores  of  material  which  shall  serve  afterwards  to  sustain  the 
great  movement  of  circulation  necessary  to  life  in  the  uni- 
verse.i     The  world  may  have  need  of  a  skeleton  of  dead 

1  "We  ueed  to  be  very  reserved  in  the  supposition  of  final  causes  in  the  case 
lOf  the  inorganic  world,  but  we  need  not  systematically  discard  any  of  them. 


196  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  VI. 

matter,  as  the  vertebrates  have  need  of  a  scaffold  to  support, 
the  tissues.  It  is  absolutely  impossible  for  us  to  specify 
anything  regarding  the  relations  of  the  two  orders;  it  is- 
enough  for  us  to  show  their  necessary  connection,  which 
affords  us  a  glimpse  of  this,  thit  the  one,  being  the  base  of 
the  other,  may  thus  possess  by  communication  and  anticipa- 
tion a  finality  which  it  would  not  have  in  itself. 

There  is  set  before  us  at  the  present  day,  as  a  necessary 
consequence  of  the  mechanical  theory  of  heat,  the  prospect 
of  a  final  state  in  which,  all  the  motion  of  the  universe  being- 
converted  into  heat,  things  would  fall  into  an  absolute  and 
eternal  equilibrium,  which  would  render  all  life  impossible. 
The  illustrious  Clausins  has  called  this  constant  transforma- 
tion of  motion  into  heat,  entropy,  and  has  formulated  this  law 
in  these  terras :  '  The  entropy  of  the  universe  tends  towards 
a  maximum  state;  the  more  the  universe  approaches  this 
boundary  state,  the  more  do  the  occasions  of  new  changes 
disappear ;  and  if  this  state  were  at  last  attained,  no  further 
change  would  take  place,  and  the  universe  would  come  to  be 
in  a  state  of  persistent  death.'  But  this  hypothesis  has  been 
disputed  by  one  of  the  very  authors  of  the  mechanical 
theory  of  heat,  by  Mayer.^     Such  remote  consequences  of  a 

'  Just  as  the  force  of  the  sun,'  says  an  eminent  savant,  M.  Grove,  '  after  having 
been  exercised  very  long  ago,  is  now  rendered  to  us  by  the  carbon  formed  under 
the  influence  of  that  luminary,  and  of  that  heat,  so  the  rays  of  the  sun,  vainly 
lost  to-day  in  the  sandy  deserts  of  Africa,  will  one  day  serve,  by  means  of 
chemistry  and  mechanics,  to  lighten  and  warm  the  habitations  of  the  coldest 
regions.'  —  Revue  des  coui's  scientifiqxies,  Ire  serie,  t.  iii.  p.  689.  '  From  the 
mouths  of  those  volcanoes  whose  convulsions  so  often  agitate  the  crust  of  the- 
globe,  incessantly  escapes  the  chief  nourishment  of  plants,  carbonic  acid  ;  from 
the  atmosphere  enflamed  by  lightning,  and  even  from  the  bosom  of  the  tempest, 
that  other  nourishment  descends  on  the  earth  which  is  as  iudisiiensable  to- 
plants,  that  from  which  comes  almost  all  their  azote,  the  nitrate  of  ammonia, 
which  the  rains  of  the  storm  contain.' — Dumas  et  Boussinganlt,  Essai  de 
statique  cliimiqite,  1844. 

1  Revue  des  coiirs  scientifiqites,  Ire  serie,  t.  v,  p.  159.  See  also  the  memoir  of 
Mr.  Tolver  Preston  on  the  possibility  of  giving  an  ciccount  of  the  continuation  of 
periodic  chanr/es  in  the  tiniverse,  conformably  to  the  tendency  to  the  equilibrium 
of  temperatxire ,  Philosophicnl  Magazine,  vol.  viii.  p.  152,  1879  (see  the  analysis  of 
this  memoir  in  the  Journal  de  Physique  of  d'Alameida,  1880,  p.  65);  finally, 
Of  the  commcnce7nent  and  of  the  end  of  the  world  after  the  7nechanical  theory  of 
heat,  by  F.  Folie  {Bulk  ins  de  I' Academic  royale  de  Delgique,  2e  serie,  t.  xxxvi. 
No.  12, 1873). 


MECHANISM   AND   FINALITY  197 

theory  so  new  and  so  delicate  may  legitimately  be  called  in 
question.  Newton  believed  that  the  data  of  his  system  of 
the  world  necessarily  led  to  the  admission  that  the  equilib- 
rium of  the  world  would  be  deranged,  and  that  it  would  need 
the  hand  of  the  Creator  to  re-establish  it ;  but  it  has  since 
been  proved  that  he  was  mistaken,  and  that  the  laws  of  the 
planetary  system  are  themselves  sufficient  to  guarantee  its 
stability.  Thus  the  greatest  scientists  may  be  mistaken  re- 
garding the  consequences  of  their  own  discoveries.  Besides, 
if  a  state  of  things  like  what  is  foretold  us  should  come  to- 
pass,  it  would  warrant  us  to  say  that  nature,  having  nothing 
more  to  do,  had  only  to  vanish  entirely,  like  the  Indian, 
dancer ;  and  as  some  scientists  think  at  present  that  science 
necessarily  leads  to  the  idea  of  a  beginning,^  perhaps  they 
will  also  find  that  it  leads  to  the  idea  of  an  end.  But  thi& 
is  to  push  inductions  and  hypotheses  very  far,  and  perhaps- 
far  beyond  what  we  are  permitted  to  conjecture.  Let  us  be 
content  to  consider  the  world  such  as  it  is. 

We  have  just  seen  that  from  its  relation  to  the  organic 
world,  the  physical  and  mechanical  world  may  be  considered 
as  having  a  relative  finality,  which  suffices  to  explain  its- 
existence.  Besides,  this  relative  finality  once  admitted,  there 
will  be  found  in  this  world,  considered  in  itself,  examples  of 
internal  finality  less  striking  than  in  the  organic  world,  but 
which  have  also  their  significance.  This  is  a  vague  finality^ 
the  pathway  to  finality. 

This  is  the  place  to  recall  to  mind  that  we  have  above 
established  a  primary  law,  which  we  had  provisionally  distin- 
guished from  the  law  of  finality,  and  which  we  have  called 
the  law  of  mechanical  agreement!^  We  have  granted  as  a. 
provisional  hypothesis,  that  a  simple  agreement  or  internal 
accord  of  phenomena,  without  visible  relation  to  an  ulterior 
phenomenon,  did  not  a  priori  appear  irreconcilable  with  a 

1  Revue  des  cours  scientiflques,  t.  vii.  p.  124  ;  Maxwell,  Rapports  des  sc.  phys. 
et  des  sc.  matMm.  {Revue  Scient.  2e  serie,  t.  i.  p.  236).  See  also  Caro,  Le  maU- 
rialisme  et  la  science,  note  B,  p.  287. 

2  See  above,  chap.  i.  p.  60. 


198  BOOK   I.  CHAPTER  VI. 

mechanical  cause.  But  if  it  be  considered  more  closely,  it 
•will  appear  that  this  was  to  concede  far  too  much. 

We  said  that  the  constancy  of  the  coincidences  must  have 
a  special  cause  ;  but  may  it  be  a  physical  cause  ?  We  must 
now  examine  this  more  closely.  We  have  here  to  make  a 
new  distinction.  These  coincidences  may  be  of  two  sorts, 
namely:  1st,  The  simple  repetition^  or  the  great  number  of 
the  phenomena ;  2d,  The  concordance  properly  so  called  be- 
tween divergent  phenomena.  Now  the  first  case  presents 
nothing  incompatible  with  the  physical  cause,  but  that  is  far 
from  being  so  evident  as  regards  the  second.  For  instance, 
the  frequency  of  storms  in  a  given  season  or  country  certainly 
-demands  a  special  explanation,  but  nothing  lying  outside  the 
domain  of  physical  causes,  for  the  number  or  the  repetition  is 
not  beyond  the  powers  of  a  physical  agent.  On  the  other 
hand,  a  convergence,  a  common  direction  given  to  elements 
by  hypothesis  independent,  can  only  be  attributed  to  a  physi- 
cal cause  by  supposing  in  this  cause  an  internal  law,  which 
■determines  in  a  certain  way  the  motion  and  direction  of  the 
elements  —  in  other  words,  by  attributing  to  matter  an  instinct 
of  order  and  combination,  which  is  precisely  what  we  call  the 
law  of  finality.  If  we  do  not  suppose  something  like  this, 
ihere  only  remains  the  fortuitous  concourse  of  the  elements, 
nd  consequently  the  absence  of  cause.  Setting  out  from  this 
principle,  let  us  see  if  an  exclusively  mechanical  explanation 
can  be  given  of  all  that  is  presented  to  us  under  the  form  of 
-system  and  plan  —  in  a  word,  under  a  regular  and  co-ordinated 
form.  Let  us  consider  the  two  most  striking  examples  of  this 
kind  of  explanation,  namely,  the  explanation  of  the  form  of 
crystals  in  crystallization,  and  the  cosmogonic  hypothesis 
of  Laplace. 

The  production  of  the  crystalline  forms  of  minerals  is  ex- 
plained hj  an  agglomeration  of  molecules,  of  which  each  one 
has  precisely  the  same  geometric  form  as  the  whole.  Thus,  a 
tetrahedron  will  be  composed  of  little  tetrahedra,  a  dodecahe- 
dron of  little  dodecahedra.    Very  well ;  the  last  perceptible  ap- 


MECHANISM   AND   FINALITY.  199 

pearance  which  these  bodies  present  is  sufficiently  explained 
by  that.  But  it  is  clear  that,  as  regards  philosophy,  the  prob- 
lem is  not  solved.  For  one  thing,  in  effect,  it  must  be  admit- 
ted that  the  integral  molecules,  directed  by  a  vague  geometry, 
know  of  themselves  how  to  find  the  mode  of  juxtaposition 
which  permits  them  in  uniting  to  reproduce  the  figure  of  the 
elements ;  for  pyramids,  joined  by  their  bases  or  their  sum- 
mits, or  by  their  angles,  do  not  make  pyramids.  What  is  the 
physical  law  in  virtue  of  which  such  a  junction  takes  place  ? 
]\Iust  it  not  be  supposed  that  whatever  force  produces  these 
forms  has  in  itself  some  reason  or  motive  which  determines 
it  to  avoid  all  the  irregular  forms,  and  to  confine  itself  to  that 
one  alone  which  will  form  a  regular  geometric  figure  ?  In 
the  second  place,  in  explaining  the  geometric  form  of  the  min- 
eral by  the  superposition  or  juxtaposition  of  molecules  of  the 
same  form,  the  only  thing  done  is  to  throw  back  the  question ; 
for  whence  comes  the  figure  of  the  integral  molecules  them- 
selves ?  Will  it  be  explained  by  the  form  of  the  elementary 
atoms,  or  by  their  mode  of  distribution  in  space  ?  But  why 
should  the  atoms  have  regular  geometric  forms?  If  every 
rational  idea  be  excluded  in  order  to  keep  to  the  conception 
of  mere  matter,  there  is  no  reason  why  the  elementary  particles 
should  have  one  form  rather  than  another,  and  the  number  of 
irregular  forms  behoved  greatly  to  exceed  that  of  the  regular 
or  geometric  forms.  As  to  their  mode  of  distribution,  there 
were  no  reason  why  it  should  be  rather  this  than  that,  and 
consequently  no  reason  that  any  order  whatever  could  pro- 
ceed from  it.  The  consequence  is  the  same,  if,  in  place  of 
admitting  atoms,  geometric  points,  centres  of  force,  or  even 
divisibility  without  end  be  admitted ;  in  any  case,  the  geo- 
metric form  will  not  be  a  primitive  fact,  and  will  always  have 
to  be  resolved  into  an  anterior  processus  of  component  parti- 
cles, implying  a  sort  of  preference  or  choice  for  such  a  form 
rather  than  another.^    Chance  cannot  here  be  appealed  to,  for 

1  •  Corpus  eamdem  figuram  habet  cum  spatio  quod  implet.    Sed  restat 
dubium  cur  tantum  potius  et  tale  spatium  impleat  quam  aliud.  et  ita  cur. 


200  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  VI. 

such  constancy  cannot  be  fortuitous.  There  is  needed,  then, 
a  reason  to  direct  the  motior  towards  this  form ;  in  some  sort, 
it  needs  to  pre-exist  before  existing.  Here  we  again  come 
upon  what  we  have  drawn  attention  to  in  the  living  being, 
namely,  the  determination  of  the  parts  by  the  whole,  and  of 
the  present  by  the  future.  The  only  difference  is  that  the 
crystal  seeks  this  form  without  having  any  interest  in  it ;  but 
it  is  possible  that  that  matters  to  other  beings  than  itself, 
and  that  the  precise  and  regular  form  of  each  substance  is  a 
condition  of  order  and  stability  indispensable  to  the  general 
security. 

We  could,  then,  carry  still  farther  than  we  have  done  this 
descending  scale,  which,  starting  from  the  fact  of  human 
industry,  had  brought  us  step  by  step  to  the  organizing 
force.  We  discover  some  traces  of  the  same  principle  even 
in  the  architecture  of  the  atoms,  as  it  has  been  called,  —  an 
inferior  art  to  that  shown  in  the  vegetables  and  animals,  but 
still  an  art,  for  it  is  not  the  necessary  result  of  mechanical 
laws. 

It  is  a  very  widespread  error  to  believe  that  wherever  we 
meet  with  geometry,  the  final  cause  must  be  absent,  under  the 
pretext  that  there  is  a  contradiction  between  geometry,  which 
is  the  domain  of  inflexible  fate,  and  finality,  which  is  that  of 
contingency  and  liberty.  But  what  is  absolutely  necessary  in 
geometry  is  simply  the  notion  of  space  and  the  laws  of  logic  ; 
all  the  rest  proceeds  from  the  freedom  of  the  mind.  Space  in 
itself  is  void  and  naked  ;  it  contains  potentially  all  forms,  but 
none  actually  ;  no  line  crosses  it,  no  point  sets  bounds  to  it,  no 
figure,  no  solid  of  itself  delineates  itself  in  it.  It  is  the  mind 
alone  which  creates  geometric  figures,  whether  by  deriving 
them  from  itself  or  by  borrowing  their  elements  from  experi- 
ence. It  is  it  that,  by  the  motion  of  a  point,  engenders  the 
line,  whether  straight  or  curved ;  by  that  of  the  line,  surfaces 

exempli  causa,  sit  potius  tripedale  quam  bipedale,  et  cur  quadratum  potius 
quam  rotundum.  Hujus  rei  ratio  ex  corporum  natura  reddi  non  possit ;  eadem 
enim  materia  ad  quamcunque  figuram  indeterminata  est.'  —  Leibnitz,  Opera 
Philoso])hica,  ed.  Erdmann,  '  Coiifessio  contra  Atheistas,'  pp.  41-4P. 


MECHANISM  AND   FINALITY.  201 

by  that  of  surfaces,  solids:  it  is  it  that  engenders  uU  the 
figures  of  different  species,  and  which  consequently  con- 
structs, by  a  sort  of  architecture,  all  the  geometric  world. 
No  doubt,  such  figures  being  given,  logic  will  have  it  that 
such  consequences  are  necessaril}'  derived  from  them ;  but  it 
is  in  no  way  necessary  that  the  figures  be  given. 

If,  then,  we  see  in  nature  regular  geometric  forms,  we  ought 
not  to  think  that  these  forms  necessarily  result  from  the 
nature  of  extension,  which  is  of  itself  indifferent  to  all  forms. 
Among  all  the  figures,  infinite  in  number,  regular  or  irregular, 
which  things  could  have  taken,  there  is  needed  a  precise 
reason  to  explain  the  formation  of  the  regular  figures.  At 
the  very  most,  it  might  have  been  imagined  that  by  friction, 
during  an  immensity  of  time,  all  angular  forms  would  have 
disappeared,  and  all  elementary  bodies  been  reduced  to  the 
rounded  form ;  but  it  is  found  that  this  is  precisely  the  only 
form  excluded  by  chemical  combinations,  and  that  nature 
only  rises  to  the  rounded  form  in  living  beings  by  a  sort  of 
geometry  superior  to  that  of  the  inert  bodies.  On  the  other 
hand,  all  the  crystalline  forms  are  angular,  without  ceasing  to 
be  regular.  No  natural  selection  can  give  a  reason  for  this 
singular  fact.  We  must  admit  a  geometric  nature  as  well 
as  an  artistic,  an  industrious  nature,  and  thus  we  find  again 
in  nature  all  the  modes  of  the  intellectual  activity  of  man. 
As  M.  CI.  Bernard  admits  in  the  organized  being  a  vital 
design^  so  there  is  in  some  sort  a  erystallic  design,  a  mineral 
architecture,  a  directive  idea  of  chemical  evolution.  The 
physical  element  as  such  contains  absolutely  nothing  to  ex- 
plain this  faculty  of  obeying  a  plan. 

Let  us  meanwhile  pass  from  the  small  to  the  great,  and 
from  the  architecture  of  the  molecule  to  the  architecture  of 
the  world ;  let  us  see  whether  the  hypothesis  of  Laplace 
excludes  finality  or  renders  it  useless. 

The  solar  world  forms  a  system  of  which  the  sun  is  the 
centre,  and  around  which  revolve  in  the  same  direction  a 
certain  number  of  planets,  and  of  which  some  have  satellites 


202  BOOK  I.   CHAPTER  VI. 

ryhich  equally  revolve  in  the  same  direction.  Now  it  is  found, 
as  we  have  seen  above,  that  this  is  precisely  the  most  favour- 
able arrangement  for  the  existence  of  life,  at  least  on  the 
earth ;  as  to  the  other  planets,  their  habitability  no  longer 
appears  to  form  a  question.  But  setting  aside  the  utility 
of  such  an  arrangement,  there  still  remain  agreement,  order, 
symmetry,  and  plan.  Now  it  is  this  accord  and  plan  that 
Laplace  explains  in  an  entirely  physical  manner  by  the 
nebular  hypothesis.  This  explanation  appears  to  be  nearly 
the  reverse  of  that  which  is  given  of  crystallization :  in  this 
case  the  form  of  the  whole  is  explained  as  an  addition  or 
composition  of  homogeneous  parts ;  in  the  former,  on  the 
contrary,  the  form  of  the  world  was  explained  as  the  result  of 
a  division  or  dismemberment  of  a  homogeneous  whole.  It  is, 
in  fact,  the  dismemberment  or  division  of  the  nebula  which 
has  given  birth  to  the  different  stars,  at  present  separated, 
which  are  only  in  reality  its  debris.  The  primitive  nebula 
was,  then,  already  the  actual  world  potentially ;  it  was  the 
confused  germ,  which,  by  the  internal  labour  of  the  elements, 
was  to  become  a  system.  But  let  it  be  well  observed,  the 
nebula  is  not  a  chaos ;  it  is  a  definite  form,  whence  there  is 
to  issue  later,  in  virtue  of  the  laws  of  motion,  an  ordered 
world.  The  question,  as  above,  is  only  thrown  back ;  for  it 
recurs  when  we  inquire  how  matter  can  have  found  precisely 
the  form  which  behoved  to  lead  afterwards  to  the  system  of 
the  world.  How  can  actions  and  reactions  purely  external, 
and  without  any  relation  to  any  plan  whatever,  even  with  the 
help  of  an  endless  friction,  have  resulted  in  a  plan  ?  How 
should  order  have  issued  from  disorder  ?  The  nebula  is  order 
already ;  it  is  already  separated  by  an  abyss  from  mere  chaos. 
Now  there  is  no  need  to  deceive  oneself,  the  absolute  negation 
of  finality  is  the  doctrine  of  chaos.  If  you  do  not  admit 
anything  that  guides  and  directs  phenomena,  you  at  the  same 
time  admit  that  they  are  absolutely  undetermined,  that  is  to 
say,  disordered :  now  how  are  you  to  pass  from  this  absolute 
disorder  to  any  order  whatever  ?     And  where  is  there  found 


MECHANISM   AND   FINALITY.  203 

a  trace  of  this  primitive  chaos?  'It  is  not  enough,'  says  a 
philosopher  who  is  at  the  same  time  a  savant,  M.  Cournot, 
'to  establish  the  possibility  of  the  passage  from  one  regular 
state  to  another;  it  would  be  necessary  to  lay  hold  of 
the  first  trace  of  the  passage  from  the  chaotic  to  the 
regular  state,  before  insolently  daring  to  banish  God  from 
the  explanation  of  the  physical  world  as  a  useless  hypothe- 


sis. 


1 


Xo  doubt  the  system  of  the  world  manifests  a  certain  num- 
ber of  accidents  which  cannot  in  any  manner  be  explained  by 
the  final  cause,  and  which  we  need  not  seek  to  trace  to  it. 
'  Why  is  Saturn  provided  with  a  ring,  while  the  other  planets 
have  none  ?  Why  has  the  same  planet  seven  moons,  Jupiter 
four,  and  the  earth  only  one,  while  Mars  and  Venus  have  none 
at  all  ?  These  are  as  much  accidents  as  cosmical  facts."  ^  But 
we  will  afterwards  see  that  the  theory  of  final  causes  is  not 
committed  to  the  denial  of  the  existence  of  accident  in  nature. 
It  may  even  be  said  that  it  is  accident  that  calls  forth  the 
theory  of  finality,  for  it  is  because  we  find  the  fortuitous  in 
nature  that  we  ask  ourselves.  Why  is  the  whole  not  for- 
tuitous? But  if  the  detail  appears  fortuitous,  the  whole  is 
not,  and  has,  indeed,  all  the  character  of  a  plan. 

It  is  known  that  it  was  by  a  reason  drawn  from  the  sim- 
plicity of  the  plan  of  the  universe  that  Copernicus  rose 
to  the  conception  of  the  true  system  of  the  world.  Alphonso 
the  Wise,  king  of  Castile,  offended  by  the  complications  which 
the  system  of  Ptolemy  assumed,  said :  '  If  God  had  called  me 
to  His  councils,  things  would  have  been  in  better  order.' 
Well,  it  turned  out  that  he  was  right.  It  was  not  the  order 
of  the  universe  that  was  at  fault,  but  the  system.  It  was  to 
avoid  the  complications  of  the  S3'stem  of  Ptolemy  that  Coper- 
nicus sought  a  simple  arrangement,  which  is  precisely  that 
which  exists.  '  He  had  the  satisfaction,'  says  Laplace,  '  to  see 
the  observations  of  astronomers  fit  in  with  his  theory.  .  . 

1  Cournot,  Essai  sur  les  id^es  fondamentales,  1.  ii.  c.  xii. 

2  Couruot,  MaUvialisme,  vitalisme,  rationalisme,  p.  70. 


204  BOOK  I.   CHAPTER  VI. 

Everj^thing  in  this  system  told  of  that  fair  simplicity  which 
charms  us  in  nature's  means,  when  we  are  happy  enough  to 
know  them.'  ^  Thus  Laplace  perceived  that  the  simplest  laws 
are  the  most  likely  to  be  true.  But  I  do  not  see  why  it  should 
be  so  on  the  supposition  of  an  absolutely  blind  cause  ;  for, 
after  all,  the  inconceivable  swiftness  which  the  system  of 
Ptolemy  supposed  in  the  celestial  system  has  nothing  physi- 
cally impossible  in  it,  and  the  complication  of  movements 
has  nothing  incompatible  with  the  idea  of  a  mechanical  cause. 
Why,  then,  do  we  expect  to  find  simple  movements  in  nature, 
and  speed  in  proportion,  except  because  we  instinctively 
attribute  a  sort  of  intelligence  and  choice  to  the  first  cause  ? 
Now  experience  justifies  this  hypothesis  ;  at  least  it  did  so 
with  Copernicus  and  Galileo.  It  also  did  so,  according  to 
Laplace,  in  the  debate  between  Clairaut  and  Buffon,  the  latter 
maintaining  against  the  former  that  the  law  of  attraction 
remained  the  same  at  all  distances.  'This  time,'  says 
Laplace,  '  the  metaphysician  was  right  as  against  the  geom- 
etrician.' 2 

Above  all,  when  one  considers  the  stability  of  the  solar 
system,  one  is  astonished  to  see  how  near  this  stability  came 
to  having  been  for  ever  impossible,  and  especially  how  con- 
stantly it  was  in  peril.  '  In  the  midst  of  the  maze  of  aug- 
mentations and  diminutions  of  swiftness,'  says  Arago,  '  of 
variations  of  forms  in  the  orbits,  of  changes  of  distances  and 
inclinations  which  these  forces  must  evidently  have  produced, 
the  most  skilful  geometry  itself  could  not  have  succeeded  in 
finding  a  strong  and  reliable  clue.  This  extreme  complication 
gave  birth  to  a  discouraging  thought.     Forces  so  numerous, 

1  Laplace,  Exposition  de  la  m€chaniqi(e  celeste,  t.  v,  c.  iv. 

2  Laplace,  Expositioji  de  la  nie'chanique  celeste:  —  'Clairaut  maintained  that 
the  law  of  Newton,  reciprocal  to  the  square  of  distances,  is  only  perceptible  at 
great  distances,  but  that  attraction  increases  in  a  greater  ratio  than  the  distance 
diminishes.  Buffon  assailed  this  conclusion,  founding  on  this,  that  the  laws  of 
nature  must  be  simple,  that  they  can  only  depend  on  a  single  model,  and  that 
the  expression  of  them  can  only  embrace  a  single  term.  But  Clairaut  found 
that  on  carrying  the  calculation  farther,  the  law  exactly  expressed  the  result 
of  the  observations.' 


MECHANISM   AND   FINALITY.  205 

SO  variable  in  position,  so  different  in  intensity,  could  seem- 
ingly only  be  maintained  perpetually  in  balance  by  a  sort  of 
miracle.  Newton  went  so  far  as  to  suppose  that  the  planetary 
system  did  not  contain  in  itself  elements  of  indefinite  preser- 
vation ;  he  believed  that  a  powerful  hand  must  have  inter- 
vened from  time  to  time  to  repair  the  disorder.  Euler, 
although  more  advanced  than  Newton  in  the  knowledge  of 
planetary  perturbations,  no  more  admitted  that  the  solar 
system  was  constituted  so  as  to  last  for  ever.'^ 

And  yet  'universal  gravitation  suffices  to  conserve  the 
solar  system ;  it  maintains  the  forms  and  inclinations  of  the 
orbits  in  a  mediate  state,  around  which  the  variations  are 
slight :  variety  does  not  involve  disorder ;  the  world  presents 
harmonies  and  perfections  of  which  even  Newton  doubted. 
This  depends  on  circumstances,  which  arithmetic  revealed 
to  Laplace,  and  which,  on  vague  observation,  did  not  seem  to 
exercise  so  great  an  influence.  For  planets  all  moving  in  the 
same  direction,  in  orbits  slightly  elliptical,  and  in  planes  but 
little  inclined  to  each  other,  substitute  different  conditions, 
and  the  stability  of  the  world  will  be  anew  imperilled,  and 
in  all  probability  there  will  result  a  frightful  chaos.  The 
author  of  the  Mechanique  cSleste  brought  out  clearly  the 
laws  of  these  great  phenomena :  the  variations  in  the  speed 
of  Jupiter,  Saturn,  and  the  moon  had,  it  was  found,  evident 
physical  causes,  and  belonged  to  the  category  of  common 
and  periodical  perturbations  dependent  on  gravity ;  the  vast 
differences  in  the  dimensions  of  the  orbits  became  a  simple 
oscillation  contained  within  narrow  limits ;  in  fine,  by  the 
omnipotence  of  a  mathematical  force,  the  material  world  is 
found  established  on  its  foundations.'  ^ 

Thus  it  is  in  virtue  of  a  mathematical  law  that  the  world 
subsists ;  but  a  mathematical  law  is  absolutely  indifferent  to 
this  or  that  result.  What  does  it  signify  to  universal  attrac- 
tion that  the  world  does  or  does  not  subsist?     But  it  is  the 

1  Arago,  JVotices  scientifiqiies,  t.  iii.  ;  Laplace,  p.  475 

2  Arago,  N'otices  scientijiqves,  t.  iii.;  Laplace,  p.  475. 


206  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  VT. 

case  that  that  force  which  begets  the  solar  system  has  in 
itself  that  wherewith  to  conserve  it.  It  happens  that  pai ti- 
des of  matter,  in  themselves  indifferent  to  the  formation  of 
this  or  that  order,  and  obeying  a  law  as  deaf  and  dumb  as 
they,  have  hit  upon  an  equilibrium  and  a  state  of  stability 
which  seems,  according  to  Arago,  the  effect  of  a  miracle. 
To  grant  that  such  a  stability  and  such  an  order  is  the  result 
of  a  happy  accident,  which  at  some  remote  time  made  order 
arise  out  of  chaos,  and  found  this  point  of  equilibrium  be- 
tween so  many  diverse  and  divergent  forces,  is  neither  more 
nor  less  than  the  doctrine  of  mere  chance. 

I  know  that  the  laivs  and  forces  of  nature  are  perpetually 
appealed  to,  and  that  to  nature  itself  a  sort  of  divinity  is 
attributed.  Be  it  so  ;  but  then  this  is  to  suppose  that  these 
laws,  these  forces,  this  nature,  though  destitute  of  conscious- 
ness and  reflection,  have  yet  a  sort  of  obscure  and  instinctive 
foresight,  and  are  guided  in  their  action,  without  knowing  it, 
by  the  general  interest  of  the  whole.  But  this,  again,  is 
finality.  Only  once  admit  that  the  effect  to  be  produced  has 
been  one  of  the  factors,  one  of  the  co-operating  elements  of  a 
system,  and  you  thereby  admit  final  causes.  On  the  other 
hand,  rob  nature,  its  forces  and  its  laws,  of  all  clear  or  ob- 
scure foresight  of  the  future,  of  all  instinct,  of  all  interest ; 
reduce  these  words  to  precise  notions,  namely,  nature,  to  the 
whole  of  things,  that  is,  of  bodies ;  the  forces  of  nature  to 
the  properties  of  these  bodies ;  the  laws  of  nature  to  the 
relations  arising  from  these  properties ;  and  it  follows  that  it 
is  only  by  fortuitous  rencounters  and  external  relations  that 
the  world  can  have  been  formed.  In  a  word,  either  the  order 
of  the  world  is  a  result,  that  is,  an  accident,  and  is  the  effect 
of  chance,  or  else  there  must  be  in  nature  a  principle  of  order, 
that  is,  a  principle  which  reduces  multiplicit}^  to  unity,  which 
directs  the  present  towards  the  future,  and  which,  conse- 
quently, obeys  (whether  it  knows  it  or  not)  the  law  of  finality.. 

The  series  of  preceding  inductions  might  be  puslied  still 
farther,  by  inquiring  whether  the  ver}-  existence  of  Imcs  in 


MECHANISM  AND   FINALITY.  207 

nature  is  not  itself  a  fact  of  finality.  No  doubt  nature  can- 
not be  imagined  as  without  a  cause,  but  it  can  be  imagined 
as  without  laws.  John  Stuart  Mill  confused  this  when  he- 
afiirnied  in  his  Inductive  Logic  ^  that  it  is  possible  to  conceive 
a  world  freed  from  the  law  of  causalit3^  He  expressed  him- 
self badly  here,  for  no  effort  of  our  mind  permits  us  to  con- 
ceive a  phenomenon  spontaneously  originating  from  nothing, 
without  being  called  forth  by  something  previous ;  but  what 
we  can  conceive  are  phenomena  without  order,  bond,  or  any 
regularity,  of  which  all  the  combinations  should  appear  for- 
tuitous, and  which  should  not  permit  any  certain  foresight 
for  the  future.  Thus  it  is,  in  appearance  at  least,  with  the 
ravings  of  madness ;  the  words,  no  longer  expressing  ideas, 
are  united  to  each  other  in  a  purely  fortuitous  manner,  with- 
out an}'  constant  and  regular  mode,  and  as  if  they  were  taken 
by  chance  from  a  dictionary.  There  is  no  reason  why  the 
phenomena  of  the  universe  should  not  be  produced  in  the 
same  manner,  if  there  be  supposed  at  the  beginning  elements^ 
purely  material,  in  which  there  pre-existed  no  principle  of 
order  and  harmony. 

'  To  consider  only  the  laws  of  motion,'  says  a  philosopher, 
'  there  is  no  reason  why  the  small  or  elementary  bodies  con- 
tinue to  group  themselves  in  the  same  order  rather  than  to 
form  new  combinations,  or  even  no  longer  to  form  any.  In 
fine,  the  very  existence  of  these  small  bodies  would  be  as 
precarious  as  that  of  the  great,  for  they  have  no  doubt  parts, 
since  they  have  extension ;  and  the  cohesion  of  these  parts 
can  only  be  explained  by  a  concourse  of  motions  impelling 
them  incessantly  towards  each  other.  They  are  thus  in  their 
turn  nothing  but  systems  of  motions,  which  the  mechanical 
laws  are  of  themselves  careless  to  preserve  or  to  destroy. 
The  world  of  Epicurus,  before  the  concourse  of  the  atoms, 
presents  us  with  but  a  feeble  idea  of  the  degree  of  dissolution 
into  which  the  universe,  in  virtue  of  its  own  mechanism, 
might  be  reduced  from  one  moment  to  another.     We  can 

1  Stuart  Mill,  System  of  Logic,  1.  iii.  chap.  xxi.  §  4. 


208  BOOK   I.   CHAPTER   VI. 

still  imugine  cubes  or  spheres  falling  in  the  void,  but  we 
cannot  imagine  that  sort  of  infinitesimal  powder,  withouL 
shape,  colour,  or  property,  appreciable  bj  any  sense.  Such 
a  hypothesis  to  us  appears  monstrous,  and  we  are  persuaded 
that  even  when  this  or  that  law  shall  come  to  be  disproved, 
there  will  always  remain  a  certain  harmony  between  the  ele- 
ments of  the  universe.  But  how  should  we  know  this,  did 
we  not  admit  a  priori  that  this  harmony  is  in  some  sort  the 
supreme  interest  of  nature,  and  that  the  causes  of  which  it 
seems  the  necessary  result  are  only  the  means  wisely  con- 
certed to  establish  it  ?  '  ^ 

We  do  not,  with  the  author  of  this  passage,  consider  it 
necessary  here  to  appeal  to  a  belief  a  priori  ;  but  the  mere 
fact  of  the  existence  of  any  order  whatever  appears  to  us  to 
testify  to  the  existence  of  another  than  the  mechanical  cause. 
The  latter,  in  effect,  as  he  says,  cares  not  to  produce  any 
regular  combination.  If,  however,  such  combinations  exist, 
and  have  lasted  for  a  vast  time,  without  the  primordial  chaotic 
state  having  ever  been  met  with  at  any  time  or  in  any  place, 
it  is  because  matter  has  been  directed,  or  has  directed  itself, 
with  a  view  to  produce  these  systems,  plans,  and  combinations, 
whence  results  the  order  of  the  world  ;  which  amounts  to  say- 
ing that  matter  has  obeyed  another  cause  than  the  mechanical. 
If  it  has  been  directed,  there  must  be  outside  of  it  an  intel- 
ligent and  spiritual  cause  ;  if  it  has  directed  itself,  itself  must 
be  an  intelligent  and  spiritual  cause.  In  both  these  cases  the 
order  of  finality  rises  above  the  mechanical  order.  If,  mean- 
while, we  ask  what  are  the  laws  of  nature,  we  shall  see  that 
they  are  only,  as  Montesquieu  has  said,  the  constant  relations 
which  result  from  the  nature  of  things.  That  these  constant 
relations  may  exist,  the  nature  of  things  must  itself  be  con- 
stant, which  supposes  that  a  certain  order  exists  even  in  the 
formation  of  these  primary  systems  of  motions  which  compose 
the  elementary  bodies ;  and  if  we  consequently  discover  finality 
,even  in  the  origin  of  these  elementary  bodies,  we  must  fivid 

1  Lachelia  .  Du  fondement  de  I'induction,  pp.  79,  80. 


MECHANISM   AND   FINALITY.  209 

it  in  the  laws  which  are  only  the  result  of  them.  As  to  the 
belief  we  have  that  the  ordei  jf  nature  will  always  continue 
(under  one  form  or  another),  and  that  there  will  always  be 
laws,  we  explain  it  by  the  axiom  that '  the  same  causes  always 
produce  the  same  effects.'  If  an  unknown  wisdom  is  the 
cause  of  the  order  which  we  admire  in  the  universe,  that  same 
wisdom  could  not  let  this  order  perish  without  becoming  folly  • 
and  to  say  that  it  might  cease  to  be,  would  be  to  say  that 
it  is  accidental  and  contingent  in  its  nature  —  that  is,  that  it 
•depended  on  matter,  which  is  contrary  to  the  hypothesis. 
If,  finally,  it  were  supposed  that  it  would  one  day  become 
impotent,  it  would  be  supposed  without  proof;  for  having 
hitherto  been  powerful  enough  to  govern  nature,  why  should 
it  cease  to  be  so  ?  Our  confidence  in  it  has  no  reason,  then, 
to  vanish  before  a  gratuitous  doubt. 

Without  doubt,  on  any  hypothesis,  there  will  always  reujain, 
in  order  to  constitute  nature  and  to  give  it  a  rule,  the  laws 
of  motion.  '  But  the  part  of  these  laws,'  as  the  author 
quoted  again  says,  '  is  limited  to  subordinating  each  motion 
to  the  preceding,  and  does  not  extend  to  mutually  co-ordinat- 
ing several  series  of  motions.  It  is  true  that  if  we  knew  at 
a  given  moment  the  direction  and  the  rapidity  of  all  the 
motions  which  are  executed  in  the  universe,  we  could  exactly 
deduce  therefrom  all  the  combinations  which  must  result ; 
but  induction  precisely  consists  in  reversing  the  problem,  by 
supposing,  on  the  other  hand,  that  the  whole  of  these  direc- 
tions and  of  these  rates  of  speed  must  be  such  as  to  repro- 
<luce  at  a  given  point  the  same  combinations.  But  to  say 
that  a  complex  phenomenon  contains  the  reason  of  the  sim- 
ple phenomena  which  concur  to  produce  it,  is  to  say  that  it 
is  their  final  cause.'  ^ 

^  Lachelier,  Bu  fondement  de  Vinduction,  p.  78.  "We  agree  at  bottom  with 
the  author  we  quote.  Perhaps,  however,  we  differ  in  the  manner  of  presenting 
the  same  argument.  M.  Lachelier  appears  to  believe  that  we  know  beforehand 
that  the  series  of  phenomena  will  produce  at  a  given  point  the  same  combina- 
tions (for  instance,  the  motion  of  the  stars,  the  perpetuity  of  species),  and  this 
belief,  which  appears  to  him  the  foundation  of  induction,  is  the  principle  of 
final  causes.    For  us,  on  the  other  hand,  the  periodic  reproduction  of  phe- 


y 


210  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER   VI. 

Who  knows,  meanwhile,  whether  one  might  not  ascend 
still  higher,  and  maintain  that  the  laws  of  motion  themselves- 
are  not  laws  purely  mechanical  and  mathematical  ?  Leibnitz 
believed  it ;  he  thought  that  these  laws  are  contingent  —  that 
they  are  laws  of  beauty  and  convenience,  not  of  necessity  — 
that  they  are  derived  from  the  divine  goodness  and  wisdom, 
not  from  the  essence  of  matter.  The  authority  of  so  great 
a  name,  one  of  tho  founders  of  modern  dynamics,  should 
impress  those  who  believe  it  so  easy  to  explain  all  by  brute 
matter.  Unhappily,  we  would  need  more  mathematical  and 
physical  knowledge  than  we  have  in  order  to  pursue  this  dis- 
cussion to  its  limit. 

However  it  may  be  as  to  this  last  point,  let  it  suffice  us  to- 
have  shown :  1st,  That  the  physical  and  mechanical  order  is 
not  exclusive  of  finality ;  2d,  That  all  order  in  general,  even 
physical  and  mechanical,  already  implies  a  certain  finality. 

If  this  be  so,  then  the  principle  of  mechanical  concordance 
is  not  essentially  distinguished,  as  we  had  at  first  thought, 
from  the  principle  of  teleological  concordance.  The  first  is 
only  the  primary  form,  the  rudimentary  and  obscure  form  of 
the  second,  and  is  only  explained  by  the  latter.  It  was,  then, 
on  our  part,  quite  a  provisional  concession,  and  in  order  to 
avoid  a  premature  discussion,  that  we  admitted  at  the  com- 
mencement of  these  studies  a  mode  of  combination  foreign  to 
finality.  We  now  see  that  finality  penetrates  everywhere, 
even  where  it  seems  the  least  visible,  and  we  can  say,  in  a 
more  general  manner  than  we  have  yet  done,  all  order  sup- 
poses an  end,  and  the  very  principle  of  order  is  the  end. 

Only  we  think  we  must  distinguish  two  kinds  of  finalit}',  — 
the  finality  of  uae  or  of  adaptation^  and  the  finality  of  plan. 
In  both  there  is  system,  and  all  system  implies  co-ordination : 

nomena  is  a  simple  fact ;  whatever  it  may  be  as  to  the  future,  this  fact  has 
existed  in  the  past,  and  it  exists  still  in  the  present,  and  it  lasts  long  enough 
not  to  be  the  effect  of  chance  :  therefore  it  has  a  cause,  but  this  cause  is,  for 
the  reasons  given,  other  than  the  mechanical  laws.  We  rise,  then,  to  the  final 
cause  by  the  principle  of  causality,  which  embraces  at  once  both  the  mechani- 
cal and  the  final  causes.    (See  chap,  i.) 


MECHANISM  AND  FOALITY.  211 

but  in  the  one  the  co-ordination  results  in  a  final  effect  which 
takes  the  character  of  an  end,  in  the  other  the  co-ordination 
has  not  this  effect.  In  both  cases  there  is  finality,  because 
the  most  simple  co-ordination  already  implies  that  the  idea  of 
the  whole  precedes  that  of  the  parts  —  that  is,  that  the  succes- 
sive arrangement  of  the  parts  is  regulated  for  the  arrangement 
which  behoves  to  be  ultimately  attained.  Only  in  the  finality 
of  plan,  when  order  is  realized,  it  seems  that  all  is  finished ; 
while  in  the  finality  of  use,  this  order  itself  is  co-ordinate  to 
something  else,  which  is  the  interest  of  the  living  being.  Let 
us  repeat  that  the  finality  of  plan  may  have  an  end,  but  an 
external  end  (for  instance,  the  arrangement  of  the  sun  which 
heats  and  illuminates  the  earth)  ;  while  in  the  finality  of  use 
the  end  is  internal  to  the  being  itself,  as  in  the  animal.  The 
finality  of  plan  is,  then,  an  internal  finality,  in  so  far  as  one 
only  considers  the  plan  itself  —  for  instance,  the  solar  system ; 
it  is  external,  if  it  is  found  to  have  some  relation  to  the  use 
of  other  beings. 

Although  the  finality  of  plan  reigns  especially  in  inorganic 
nature,  and  that  of  use  in  living  beings,  yet  we  find  both  at 
once  in  the  latter,  the  plan  beside  the  adaptation,  and  the  one 
is  not  always  in  harmony  with  the  other ;  in  every  case  the 
one  is  different  from  the  other.  The  adaptation  of  the  organs 
to  the  functions,  and  the  functional  co-operation  of  the  organs, 
is  one  thing ;  the  correspondence  of  the  parts,  their  propor- 
tions, their  symmetry,  is  another.  There  is  a  sort  of  geometry 
of  living  beings,  independent  of  mechanics,  and  which  does 
not  seem  to  have  a  useful  result  as  an  end.  Symmetry,  for 
instance,  is  certainly  one  of  the  needs  of  living  nature.  Four 
kinds  of  it  are  to  be  distinguished :  1st,  The  i-adiated  sym- 
metrical tyj)e,  as  in  the  radiata,  where  the  homogeneous  parts 
are  grouped  round  a  common  centre ;  2d,  The  branched  sym- 
metrical type,  as  in  the  vegetables  and  the  polyps;  3d,  The 
serial  type,  in  the  succession  from  head  to  tail,  as  in  the 
articulata;  4th,  The  bilateral  type,  or  repetition  of  the  like 
parts  of  the  two  sides  of  the  body,  as  in  the  higher  animals 


212  BOOK  I.   CHAPTER  VI. 

and  man.  These  facts  show  us  that  living  nature  has  alsa 
its  geometric  forms,  only  much  more  free  and  more  rounded 
than  those  of  the  crystals. 

Independently  of  the  geometric  forms,  the  proportions 
and  symmetries  which  are  remarked  in  animated  beings,  there 
are  arrangements  of  parts  which  allow  us  to  classify  all  the 
animals  in  four  very  distinct  compartments,  whether  these 
compartments  be  absolutely  separated,  as  Cuvier  believed,  or 
there  be  passages  from  one  to  the  other,  as  G.  St.  Hilaire 
thought.  If  the  principle  of  adaptation  alone  ruled  in  the 
structure  of  the  animals,  it  seems  that  the  most  natural  classi- 
lication  would  be  that  which  at  first  occurred  to  men's  minds, 
namely,  that  which  originates  in  the  diversity  of  habitable 
media.  Now  there  are  three  habitable  media  —  water,  air, 
and  earth ;  hence  three  great  classes  of  animals  —  aquatic, 
flying,  and  terrestrial.  From  these  three  great  divisions  should 
result  all  the  zoological  divisions  and  subdivisions.  However,. 
it  is  found  that  this  classification  is  superficial,  and  that  which 
has  prevailed  is  founded  not  on  the  use  of  the  parts,  but  on 
the  design  of  the  animal.  The  types,  not  the  functions,  serve 
as  the  basis  of  all  zoological  nomenclature.  It  is  evident 
what  importance  is  attached  in  the  zoological  sciences  to  the 
finality  of  plan. 

This  finality  appeared  so  important  to  a  famous  naturalist, 
M.  Agassiz,  that  he  thought  the  proof  of  the  existence  of  God 
ought  to  be  sought  much  more  in  the  plan  of  the  animals  than 
in  the  adaptation  of  the  organs,  which  is,  in  our  opinion,  a 
great  exaggeration.  Nevertheless,  it  is  certain  that  the  creation 
of  a  type  (apart  even  from  all  adaptation)  is  inseparable  from 
the  idea  of  plan  and  end,  and  consequently  supposes  art.^ 
Agassiz  especially  mentions  the  following  facts,  so  unlike  the 
blind  combinations  of  a  purely  physical  nature :  on  the  one 
hand,  the  simultaneous  existence  of  the  most  diverse  types  in 
the  midst  of  identical  circumstances ;  on  the  other,  the  repe- 
tition of  similar  typos  in  circumstances  the  most  diverse,  the 

1  !^gassiz,  Da  a  classification  en  zoologie,  p.  214  et  soq. 


MECHANISM   AND   I INALITY.  21^ 

auity  of  plan  in  the  most  diverse  beings,  etc.  These  facts^ 
and  all  those  which  Agassiz  accumulates  with  the  profoundest 
knowledge  of  the  question,  always  bring  us  back  to  this  i 
how  could  blind  elements,  not  having  in  themselves  any 
principle  of  direction,  have  been  able  to  find  stable  and  con- 
stant combinations,  and  that  indefinitely?  All  design  sup- 
poses a  designer.  The  figures  of  nature,  whatever  they  be, 
have  precise  and  distinct  contours.  Can  the  play  of  the 
elements  have  designed  the  human  figure  ? 

The  finality  of  plan  which  we  remark  in  the  whole  of 
nature  brings  us  to  esthetical  finality^  which  is  a  form  of  it. 
This  is  not  the  place  to  handle  the  question  of  the  beautiful ; 
but  whatever  be  the  intimate  essence  of  the  beautiful,  all  the 
schools  are  agreed  in  recognising  that  it  implies  a  certain 
accord  between  the  parts  and  the  whole  —  unitas  in  varietate. 
Must  there  not  then  be,  in  order  that  nature  may  be  beauti- 
ful, some  principle  which  reduces  diversity  to  unity  ?  It  will 
not  suflSce  to  meet  this  difficulty  to  derive  everything,  with. 
Spinoza,  from  a  single  substance ;  for  the  question  is  not  of  a 
unity  of  origin,  but  of  a  unity  of  agreement,  proportion,  and 
harmony.  The  question  is  not  of  an  abstract  and  vague  iden- 
tity, but  of  a  moral  and  intelligible  unity,  resulting  from  the- 
diversity  itself.  The  unity  of  action  in  the  tragedy  does 
not  consist  in  presenting  a  unique  personage  or  a  unique 
situation,  but  in  uniting,  as  in  a  centre,  on  a  given  point  the 
divergent  passions  and  the  contrary  interests  of  several  dis- 
tinct personages.  A  unity  which  should  send  forth  from  its 
womb  series  of  phenomena  to  infinitude  would  not  suffice  to 
produce  the  sentiment  of  the  beautiful ;  it  must  distribute 
them,  group  them,  bind  them  together,  consequently  watch 
their  evolution,  conduct  them  where  it  will,  impose  upon  theisi 
a  measure  and  a  rule  —  in  a  word,  a  type  and  a  plan.  The 
same  law  which  has  made  us  recognise  finality  in  every  reg- 
ular composition,  compels  us  to  recognise  it  in  the  beautiful. 
Nature  is  no  more  an  artist  by  chance  than  a  geometrician  ; 
its  esthetic  is  no  more  fortuitous  than  its  industry.     It  is- 


^14  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  VI. 

tecause  there  is  an  industry  of  nature,  a  geometry,  an  esthetic 
of  nature,  that  man  is  capable  ol  industry,  of  geometry,  and 
esthetic.  Nature  is  all  that  we  are,  and  all  that  we  are  we 
hold  from  nature.  The  creative  genius  which  the  artist  feels 
in  himself  is  to  him  the  revelation  and  the  symbol  of  the 
«crea,tive  genius  of  nature. 


CHAPTER   VII. 

THE  DOCTRINE   OF  EVOLUTION  IN   GENERAL. 

n^HE  mechanical  philosophy,  which  we  have  examined  in 
-^  a  previous  chapter  under  its  abstract  and  general  form, 
has  anew  gained  favour  under  a  recent  theory,  and  may  have 
thought  that  it  has  at  last  found  the  means  of  eluding  the 
overwhelming  difficulties  that  at  all  times  have  weighed  on 
it.  It  is,  as  Plato  says  in  the  Republic,  '  a  new  wave  '  that  is 
rising  against  us,  and  which  we  must  yet  once  more  repel, 
if  we  wish  that  the  preceding  results,  so  laboriously  reared, 
should  remain  definitely  established. 

This  new  theory  is  the  English  doctrine  called  '  evolution,'  a 
theory  whose  culminating  point  is  Darwinism.  In  what  does 
this  doctrine  consist  ?  This  is  it  in  two  words :  that  nothing 
in  nature  is  produced  all  at  once  in  a  complete  or  finished 
form  —  nothing  begins  in  the  adult  state ;  on  the  contrary, 
everything  commences  in  the  infant  or  rudimentary  state. 
and  passes,  by  a  succession  of  degrees,  through  an  immensity 
of  phenomena  infinitely  little,  until  it  at  last  appears  under 
its  precise  and  determinate  form,  which,  in  its  turn,  is  itself 
dissolved  in  the  same  manner  by  a  regression  of  phenomena 
analogous  to  the  progress  that  produced  it,  which  is  called 
the  law  of  integration  and  dissolution.  The  universe  as  a 
whole,  as  well  as  in  all  its  parts,  is  subject  to  this  law ;  and, 
in  particular,  the  origin  and  development  of  living  beings, 
and  the  succession  of  organic  species,  are  explained  in  the 
same  manner.  Borrowed  at  first  from  physiology,  this  theory 
has  by  degrees  been  applied  to  geology,  astronomy,  zoology, 
history,  and  politics.  On  every  hand  men  have  seen,  in 
]ilac'T  of  sudden  appearances,  insensible  progress,  slow  and 

215 


216  BOOK  I.   CHAPTER  VII. 

continued  developments.  By  means  of  this  secret  and  inces- 
sant labour  of  nature,  in  virtue  of  which  everything  always 
ends  by  accommodating  itself  to  its  medium,  men  have 
thought  themselves  able  to  explain  appropriations  and  adap- 
tations, which  the  friends  of  final  causes  had  always  opposed 
as  an  insuperable  barrier  to  the  encroachments  of  mechanical 
philosofihy.  The  examination  of  this  doctrine  is,  therefore, 
imperatively  required  of  us  here,  at  least  in  its  relation  to 
the  question  that  engages  us ;  for  to  study  and  discuss  it  in 
itself  would  be  to  leave  the  sphere  of  our  subject.  We  will 
confine  ourselves  to  examining  tlie  two  following  questions : 
—  1st,  Does  the  theory  of  evolution  exclude  final  causes, 
and  render  them  impossible  ?  2d,  Does  this  theory  supersede 
final  causes,  and  render  them  useless?  If  we  succeed  in 
proving  that  the  doctrine  of  evolution  neither  renders  final 
3auses  impossible  nor  useless,  we  shall  have  sufficiently 
proved  what  concerns  us,  and  shall  not  have  to  inquire 
whether  this  doctrine  is  itself  true  or  false. 

That  the  doctrine  of  evolution  does  not  exclude  final 
causes  is  quite  manifest  from  the  very  facts  presented  by  the 
human  mind.  In  humanity,  indeed,  the  existence  of  the  final 
cause  cannot  be  denied,  and  yet  it  quite  harmonizes  with  the 
law  of  evolution.  Every  sort  of  project,  plan,  or  combination 
for  the  future  supposes  the  final  cause,  and  yet  it  can  only 
be  executed  by  degrees.  A  merchant  who  undertakes  a  great 
afiair  sets  before  himself  an  end,  which,  perhaps,  may  only  be 
attained  several  years  afterwards ;  yet  to  attain  this  end,  he 
must  take  a  thousand  intermediate  steps,  and,  starting  from 
the  point  where  he  is,  add  day  by  day,  and  in  some  sort  piece 
by  piece,  each  of  the  operations  of  which  the  whole  must  be 
composed.  So  with  an  author  composing  a  book,  with  a  great 
captain  making  a  plan  of  battle.  It  is  just  the  impatience 
caused  by  these  necessary  intermediate  steps  that  explains 
the  pleasure  of  fairy  tales,  in  which  we  see  the  desired 
thing  suddenly  produced  by  the  fiat  of  an  enchanter. 
But   this  onl}^  happens  in  fairy   tales ;   in  real  life,  grada- 


THE  DOCTRINE   OF  EVOLUTION   IN   GENERAL.  217 

tioii,  evolution  is   the  law ;  and  yet  this  evolution  leads  to 
the  end. 

Human  industry,  as  well  as  that  of  nature,  only  proceeds 
by  degrees,  and  by  a  law  of  evolution.  Behold  this  sheet  of 
paper,  it  may  be  said,  which  appears  so  suitable  for  writing, 
and  which  seems  to  have  been  prepared  for  that  jjurpose. 
Well,  it  is  only  requisite  that  some  old  rags  be  brought 
together  by  some  happy  circumstance,  and  encounter  a  liquid 
that  moistens  and  washes  them,  external  forces  that  tear  and 
pound  them,  so  as  to  make  a  pulp ;  it  suffices  that  in  course 
of  time,  and  by  happy  coincidence,  this  pulp,  rendered  quite 
liquid,  be  brought  into  contact  with  a  machine  (the  origin  of 
which  can  be  afterwards  explained  in  the  same  way)  ;  pass- 
ing under  certain  rollers  and  through  a  continued  succession 
of  degrees  of  temperature,  being  gradually  heated  and  dried, 
it  finally  becomes  a  paste,  which,  in  the  end,  is  just  what  we 
call  paper.  Is  it  not  evident  that  there  is  here  an  evolution  of 
phenomena  which,  from  the  raw  state  of  the  primary  matter 
to  the  final  state  of  the  manufactured  article,  leaves  no  void, 
no  rupture  ?  And  might  not  one  who  did  not  see  the  hand 
of  man  interposing  at  each  of  these  operations,  or  at  the  origin 
of  them  all,  believe  that  he  had  eliminated  all  finality,  because 
he  could  describe,  with  the  utmost  exactness,  all  the  elements 
of  the  operation,  and  the  insensible  transition  from  each  of 
these  degrees  to  the  other?  And  yet  we  know  well  that  in 
this  case  the  whole  chain  of  the  phenomena  has  been  pre- 
pared and  directed  to  attain  the  final  aim.  And  if  it  be 
objected  that  the  hand  of  man  is  obliged  several  times  to 
interpose,  and  that,  consequently,  there  is  not  a  perfect  evolu- 
tion* we  reply  that  at  least  the  last  operation  is  developed 
quite  alone,  and  that,  save  the  initial  impulse  (which  must 
always  be  supposed  in  nature  as  well  as  in  machines),  all  takes 
place  by  degrees.  Whoever,  in  short,  has  seen  a  paper- 
raacliine,  knows  that  the  liquid  paste  that  passes  under  the 
first  roller  emerges  at  the  end  as  paper  fit  for  printing,  with 
out  any  other  action  than  that  of  the  machine  interposing  in 


218  BOOK   I.   CHAPTER   VII. 

the  interval.  Besides,  our  industry  being  very  imperfect,  it  is 
very  true  that  we  are  obliged  to  perform  several  different  acts 
of  personal  intervention  before  the  mechanism  spontaneously 
develops.  But  the  more  clever  and  skilled  our  industry 
becomes,  the  greater  is  the  number  of  phenomena  we  can  com- 
bine with  a  less  number  of  preparatory  acts ;  so  that,  supposing 
wisdom  and  power  become  infinite,  it  is  easy  to  conceive  that 
a  single  preparatory  act,  a  single  initial  intervention,  should 
suffice  for  endless  combinations.  In  this  case,  consequently, 
as  in  that  of  human  industry,  the  phenomena  are  developed 
regularly,  conformably  to  their  laws,  without  any  of  them  in 
particular  supposing  any  miraculous  action ;  and  yet  the 
whole  will  present  a  skilled  combination,  from  which  we 
shall  be  able  to  conclude  that  the  first  stroke  has  been  given 
by  an  industrious  hand.^ 

Not  only  does  the  idea  of  evolution  not  exclude  the  idea  of 
final  causes,  it  even  seems,  on  the  contrary,  naturally  to  imply 
it.  Evolution  is  nothing  but  development,  but  the  word 
development  seems  to  imply  a  substance  that  tends  towards 
an  end.  The  type  of  this  phenomenon  is  the  seed  of  organ- 
ized beings  —  the  acorn  that  becomes  an  oak.  But  what 
impels  it  to  that  change  but  a  secret  force,  tending  to  realize 
what  is  potentially  in  the  acorn  —  that  is,  the  essence  of  the 
oak  ?  Without  such  a  force,  why  should  not  the  acorn  remain 
an  acorn?  It  is,  then,  in  order  to  become  an  oak  that  it  is 
modified.  In  this  manner,  in  Aristotle's  view,  the  formal 
cause  is  identical  with  the  final  cause.  If  we  admit  at  all 
that  a  being  has  a  tendency  towards  the  future,  aspires  to 
something,  we  thereby  admit  some  finality. 

1  M.  Littre  objects  to  the  doctrine  of  final  causes  that  it  requires  an  incessant 
intervention  of  the  supreme  cause  in  the  universe,  and  consequently  that  it  is 
an  appeal  to  the  supernatural,  and  that  it  is  therein  contrary  to  what  he  calis 
the  positive  mode  of  thinking  (Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  15th  August  18GG).  Mr. 
Stuart  Mill  refutes  him  on  this  point  {Aug.  Comte  a7id  Positivls7n,  p.  15).  He 
even  quotes  the  authority  of  Aug.  Comte,  who,  in  his  last  work  (Politique 
positive,  vol.  i.  p.  47  of  the  1st  edition,  and  vol.  ii.  pp.  57  and  58),  affirms  that 
the  hypothesis  of  design  in  nature  is  more  probable  than  that  of  a  blind  mech- 
anism. Cabanis  has  equally  returned  to  the  same  view  in  his  Lettre  a  Faurie, 
sur  les  causes  premieres,  p.  41. 


THE  DOCTRINE   OF  EVOLUTION  IN   GENERAL.  219 

Besides,  history  is  ready  to  teach  us  that  the  theory  of 
evolution  is  not  at  all  irreconcilable  with  the  principle  of 
final  causes.  It  would  be,  in  effect,  a  great  error  to  consider 
the  doctrine  of  evolution  as  of  recent  invention,  and  exclu- 
sively due  to  English  philosophy.  The  true  founder  of  this 
doctrine  was  Leibnitz.  He  it  was  who,  by  the  laiv  of  contin- 
uity, by  his  theory  of  insensible  perceptions,  by  his  principle 
of  the  infinitely  little,  first  set  up  this  theor}^  in  a  learned  and 
profound  manner.  It  was  he  who  said  :  '  The  present  is  big 
with  the  future.'  But  he  never  separated  his  theory  of  evo- 
lution and  progress  from  the  theory  of  final  causes.  In  his 
view,  the  principle  of  the  development  of  monads,  and,  con- 
sequently, of  the  universe,  is  what  he  calls  the  appetitus  or 
tendency  to  pass  from  one  state  to  another,  all  internal 
change  of  substances  being  governed  by  the  principle  of  the 
end,  while  the  external  changes  are  only  produced  by  exter- 
nal and  mechanical  causes. 

Previous  to  the  last  form  that  the  doctrine  of  evolution 
has  assumed  in  the  English  school,  it  was  not  usual  to  oppose 
it  to  finality,  but  to  mechanism.  The  one  was  the  theory  of 
internal  development,  the  other  the  theory  of  external  com- 
binations, produced  by  the  approach  or  separation  of  the 
parts.  It  was  hylozoism,  in  opposition  to  the  geometrical 
mechanism  that  excludes  all  life  from  nature.  Thus  the 
evolutionism  of  Leibnitz  opposed  the  mechanism  of  Des- 
cartes and  Spinoza ;  or,  again,  the  evolutionism  of  Schelling 
and  Hegel  opposed  the  atheistic  mechanism  of  the  18th  cen- 
tury. But  in  all  these  evolutionary  doctrines,  it  was  the 
final  cause  that  ruled  and  even  characterised  them. 

There  is,  then,  no  implicit  contradiction,  ipso  facto,  be- 
tween evolution  and  the  final  cause.  The  only  question  is, 
how  evolution  is  understood.  Is  it  meant  as  a  simple  devel- 
opment of  mechanical  forces  ?  Why,  then,  we  revert  to  the 
old  doctrine  of  fortuitous  combinations,  an  inevitable  conse- 
quence of  mere  mechanism.  Is  evolution  meant  in  the  sense 
of  the  intrinsic  development  of  the   essence?     Why,  then, 


220  BOOK   I.   CHAPTER   VII. 

we  revert  to  the  final  cause ;  for  the  essence  being  the  law 
of  the  development  of  the  being,  is  thereby  its  end,  since 
each  of  the  elements  of  that  development  is  only  a  step  to 
arrive  at  the  complete  realization  of  the  essence,  which  only 
serves  as  the  mainspring,  while  it  is  at  the  same  time  the 
limit  of  the  action. 

But  if,  meanwhile  (without  inquiring  whether  this  devel- 
opment is  external  or  internal,  mechanical  or  dynamical),  we 
consider  in  evolution  only  the  genetic  point  of  view,  —  that 
is  to  say,  that  which  shows  us  things  in  their  origin,  in  their 
progress  and  growth,  and  which  causes  their  gradual  produc- 
tion before  us,  —  in  place  of  considering  them  as  all  made, 
which,  in  a  word,  according  to  the  expression  of  Leibnitz, 
shows  us  their possibiliti/,  in  this  sense  the  theory  of  evolution 
may  well  be  contrary  in  geology  and  zoology  to  what  are 
called  special  or  local  creations  ;  but  it  has  nothing  to  allege 
against  an  intelligent  cause  of  the  universe,  and,  above  all 
(apart  from  any  question  as  to  the  first  cause),  against  the 
existence  of  finality  in  nature.  For  instance,  when  Mr.  Her- 
bert Spencer  thinks  to  oppose  the  doctrine  of  final  causes  and 
of  a  creative  intelligence  by  opposing  the  doctrine  of  special 
creations,  he  mixes  up  very  difi'erent  questions.^  Special  crea- 
tions are  one  manner  of  conceiving  the  creative  action,  evolu- 
tion is  another.  The  history  of  philosophy  can  teach  us  that 
the  problem  in  its  generality  and  in  all  its  depth  has  not  been 
stated  by  Darwinism.  It  was  so  in  the  17th  century,  with 
the  most  profound  knowledge  of  the  conditions  of  the  prob- 
lem, both  by  Descartes  and  Leibnitz.  No  doubt,  at  that 
period,  the  mind  did  not  dare  to  grapple  the  rugged  problem 
of  the  origin  of  man  and  of  life,  but  at  bottom,  when  Des- 
cartes conceived  the  origin  of  the  world  by  whirlwinds,  it  is 
clear  that  he  did  not  view  it  as  having  been  immediately  cre- 
ated such  as  it  is ;  and  in  that  admirable  passage  of  the  Dis- 
cours  de  la  methode^  he  expressly  says  :  '  I  would  never  wish  to 

1  Biology,  Part  iii.  chap.  ii.  Mr.  Spencer  especially  opposes  the  doctrine  of 
final  causes  from  the  objection  of  evil  .  See  on  this  point  our  previous  chapter. 


THE   DOCTRINE   OF  EVOLUTION   IN  GENERAL  221 

infer  from  all  these  things  that  this  world  has  been  created  in 
the  fashion  I  stated,  for  it  is  much  more  probable  that  from  the 
beginning  God  made  it  such  as  it  behoved  to  be.  But  it  is  cer- 
tain, and  is  an  opinion  commonly  received  among  theologians, 
that  the  action  by  which  at  present  He  preserves  it  is  quite  the 
same  as  that  by  which  He  created  ii,  so  that,  even  if  He  had 
given  it,  at  the  beginning,  no  other  form  than  that  of  chaos,  pro- 
vided that,  having  established  the  laws  of  nature.  He  gave  it 
His  concurrence  to  act  as  it  is  wont,  one  may  believe,  without 
prejudice  to  the  miracle  of  creation,  that  by  this  alone  things 
purely  material  would  in  time  have  been  able  to  become  such 
as  we  see  them  at  present;  and  their  nature  is  much  more 
easy  to  conceive  wheyi  they  are  seen  originating  by  degrees  in 
this  ivay,  than  when  they  are  considered  as  entirely  made.''  ^ 

It  is  clear  that  Descartes  here  states  the  principle  of  the 
doctrine  of  evolution.  Did  he,  therefore,  suppress  an  intel- 
ligent cause  of  the  universe  ?  Certainly  not ;  and  although 
Pascal  reproached  him  with  having  reduced  the  action  of  God 
to  '  a  fillip,'  this  accusation  does  not  apply,  because  he  admitted 
that  creation  and  preservation  are  one  and  the  same  thing, 
and  that  the  act  by  which  He  creates  the  universe  is  also 
that  by  which  He  sustains  it.  Will  it  be  said  that  Descartes 
excluded  final  causes  from  physics  ?  We  may  reply  that  this 
is  more  in  appearance  than  in  reality ;  for  when  he  declares 
that  he  has  sought  the  laws  of  nature  without  resting  on  any 
principle  but  the  '  infinite  perfections  of  God,'  was  not  this 
to  revert  in  reality  to  the  principle  of  ends,  perfection  being 
the  supreme  end? 

But  above  all,  the  philosophical  question  has  been  debated 
between   Leibnitz    and   Clarke,    of   which    question   special 


1  Discours  de  la  me'thode.  '  God  has  so  wondrously  established  these  laws,' 
says  he  elsewhere,  '  that  even  if  we  suppose  that  He  creates  nothing  more  than  I 
have  said  (matter  and  motion),  and  even  if  He  puts  into  this  no  order  nor  pro- 
portion, but  makes  of  it  a  chaos  as  confused  and  perplexed  as  the  poets  could 
describe,  they  are  sufficient  to  cause  the  parts  of  this  chaos  to  unravel  themselves, 
and  arrange  themselves  in  so  good  an  order  that  they  shall  have  the  form  of  a 
very  perfect  world.'  — Le  Monde,  chap,  vi.,  ed.  Cousin,  torn.  iv.  p.  249. 


222  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  VII. 

creations  are  only  a  particular  case.  Yet  once  more :  no 
one  in  the  17th  century  would  have  dared  to  apply  the 
question  to  the  origin  of  living  beings,  so  much  did  super- 
naturalism  impose  its  authority  in  that  domain  ;  but  without 
application  to  such  a  question  in  particular,  the  general  dis- 
cussion was  raised  none,  the  less.  Leibnitz  maintained  in 
effect,  in  all  his  philosophy,  that  the  highest  idea  one  can 
form  of  the  Creator  is  to  suppose  Him  creating  a  world 
capable  of  developing  itself  by  its  own  laws,  without  causing 
Him  incessantly  to  interpose  in  it  by  miracles.  In  truth, 
the  dispute  of  Clarke  and  Leibnitz  bore  on  a  more  particular 
question  —  namely,  whether  the  world  needs  to  be  wound 
up  and  adjusted  from  time  to  time.  We  know  that,  accord- 
ing to  Newton,  the  actual  laws  do  not  guarantee  the  existence 
of  our  world,  and  that  God  must  interpose  from  time  to  time 
to  put  it  right.  The  question  was,  then,  of  a  readjustment 
of  the  universe,  rather  than  of  special  and  new  creations. 
However,  the  principles  of  Leibnitz  can  be  applied  to  both 
cases.  When  he  says,  for  instance  :  '  In  my  opinion,  the  8a7ne 
force  and  vigour  always  exists,  and  only  passes  from  matter  to 
matter,  according  to  the  law  of  nature  ; '  when  he  says  again  : 
'  Why  should  it  be  contrary  to  reason  that  the  word  fiat 
having  left  something  behind  it,  —  namely,  the  thing  itself,  — 
the  not  less  admirable  word  benediction  has  also  left  behind  it 
in  things,  to  produce  their  acts,  a  certain  fecundity  or  acting 
virtue  ? '  —  in  these  various  passages,  Leibnitz,  like  Descartes, 
immediately  appeals  to  the  very  principles  of  the  doctrine  of 
evolution,  and,  in  setting  aside  the  Deus  ex  maeJund,  he  fur- 
nishes the  principles  that  can,  rightly  or  wrongly,  be  emplo}- ed 
against  special  creations ;  but  by  these  principles  Leibnitz 
did  not  think,  and  certainly  did  not  wish,  to  weaken  the  part 
of  the  divine  action  in  nature.  He  believed  that  God  had  at 
the  beginning  imprinted  in  each  creature  the  law  of  its 
development,  and  that  the  universe  was  only  the  manifesta- 
tion of  that  law.  In  fine,  he  believed  that  that  law  was 
nothing  else  than  the  principle  of  the  best  —  in  other  words. 


THE   DOCTRINE  OF  EVOLUTION   IN   GENERAL.  223- 

the  principle  of  final  causes.  There  was,  therefore,  in  liis 
view,  no  contradiction  between  evolution  and  finality. 

Thus  the  question  of  special  and  local  creations  is  one 
thing,  with  which  we  are  not  at  all  concerned  ;  the  question 
of  a  cause  superior  to  nature,  producing  and  preserving  it  by 
an  act  essentially  wise,  is  another ;  and,  still  more  so,  the 
existence  of  a  law  of  finality  in  nature  itself.  That  the 
doctrine  of  evolution  is  gaining  ground  over  the  doctrine  of 
special  creations  we  will  not  deny,  but  the  much  more  gen- 
eral doctrine  of  a  finality  in  things  is  not  at  all  impugned 
thereby. 

For  the  rest,  the  learned  and  acute  defender  of  evolution 
under  its  most  recent  form,  Mr.  H.  Spencer,  seems  himself  to 
recognise  the  truth  of  this,  when  he  tells  us :  '  The  genesis  of 
an  atom  is  no  easier  to  conceive  than  that  of  a  planet.  Indeed, 
far  from  rendering  the  universe  less  mysterious  than  before, 
it  makes  a  much  greater  mystery  of  it.  Creation  by  fabrication 
is  much  lower  than  creation  by  evolution.  A  man  can  bring  a 
machine  together;  he  cannot  make  a  machine  that  develops 
itself.  That  our  harmonious  universe  should  formerly  have 
existed  potentially  in  the  state  of  diffused  matter,  without 
form,  and  that  it  should  gradually  have  attained  its  present 
organization,  is  much  more  wonderful  than  its  formation  ac- 
cording to  the  artificial  method  supposed  by  the  vulgar  would 
be.  Those  who  consider  it  legitimate  to  argue  from  phenom- 
ena to  noumena^  have  good  right  to  maintain  that  the  nebular 
hypothesis  implies  a  primary  cause  as  superior  to  the  me- 
chanical God  of  Paley  as  that  is  to  the  fetish  of  the  savage.' ' 

Let  us  endeavour  to  show  how  the  hypothesis  of  evolution 
may  lead  in  effect  to  a  conception  of  finality  which  only 
differs  from  that  commonly  formed  by  being  grander. 

1  Essays,  voL  i.  p.  298.  See  Ribot,  Psyclioloyie  Anglaise,  2d  ed.  p.  192.  I,et 
us  reruark,  in  passing,  that  the  God  of  Paley  is  not  a  mechanical  God.  As- 
it  is  impossible  to  speak  without  a  metaphor,  it  is  certain  that  when  one  com- 
pares  the  machines  of  nature  to  those  of  man,  we  are  apt  to  speak  of  God  as- 
a  mechanician.  So,  at  other  times,  one  talks  of  the  divine  poet,  the  great 
geometrician,  the  great  lawgiver,  the  sovereign  judge,  etc.  These  are  modes  of. 
expression,  and  if  they  are  forbidden,  we  must  cease  to  speak  of  these  things. 


224  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  VII. 

Let  the  old  argument  of  final  causes  be  applied  to  the 
formation  of  the  eye.  We  ask,  How  could  such  a  machine 
liave  made  itself?  The  answer  is,  that  it  did  not  make  it- 
self, but  has  been  gradually  produced  in  virtue  of  organizing 
forces  which  weave  and  fashion  the  materials  of  the  organs, 
muscles,  nerves,  vessels,  and  combine  them  as  heart,  brain, 
stomach,  lungs,  etc.  Be  it  so  ;  but  in  place  of  a  single  machine 
to  explain,  you  will  have  thousands  combined  together  and 
reduced  to  one,  which  is  called  an  organism,  a  living  being. 
The  problem  is,  therefore,  much  more  complicated  than  pre- 
viously, and  a  much  more  powerful  creative  cause  is  needed. 
We  want  to  know  who  has  made  this  complex  machine  com- 
posed of  machines.  Has  it  made  itself  ?  No,  we  are  told ; 
it  existed  in  virtue  of  generation  —  that  is,  a  law  inherent  in 
the  species,  and  which  makes  of  the  whole  species  one  and  the 
same  being,  one  and  the  same  individual,  constantly  rising 
^gain  from  its  ashes.  Be  it  so.  But  here  again,  in  place  of 
having  to  explain  one  organism,  you  will  have  thousands ;  in 
place  of  having  a  single  machine,  you  will  have  machines 
of  machines  without  end,  with  an  ever  new  force  of  reproduc- 
tion. Does  it  not  need,  to  create  those  machines  of  machines, 
.a  power  and  art  much  greater  than  to  create  one  by  itself?  I 
now  ask.  Whence  comes  that  general  organism,  that  series  of 
homogeneous  machines,  called  a  species?  Did  it  make  itself? 
No,  we  shall  be  told ;  it  had  its  origin  in  a  higher  and  more 
general  law,  the  law  of  transformation.  Each  species  is  only 
a  part  of  an  infinite  whole,  which,  multiplying  in  time  and 
space,  under  a  thousand  and  thousand  forms,  gives  birth  to  all 
animal  and  vegetable  species.  Be  it  so  again ;  but  then,  in 
place  of  a  single  race,  you  will  have  thousands  of  races,  all 
endued  with  vitality,  and  with  artistic  or  industrial  properties 
infinitely  rich.  The  living  (jo  l,wov'),  taken  in  its  most  general 
sense  as  one  and  the  same  thing —  this  is  what  you  have  now 
before  you,  in  place  of  the  small  machine  from  which  we  started 
just  now.  It  is  no  longer  a  question  of  explaining  an  eye  or 
ii  tooth,  but  this  vast  unbounded  organism,  peopling  air,  earth, 


THE   DOCTRINE   OF   EVOLUTION   IN   GENERAL.  225 

and  water,  of  beings  visible  and  invisible,  all  moved  and 
guided  in  every  direction  for  self-preservation  and  perpetua- 
tion,—  a  world  visible  and  invisible,  and  whose  invisible  part 
is  perhaps  thousands  of  times  richer  and  more  varied  than  what 
is  visible.  Has  this  being  made  itself?  No,  it  will  be  said  ; 
it  is  itself  only  the  product  of  the  laws  of  matter,  of  a  single 
fundamental  law,  if  you  will  —  that  of  the  conservation  of 
force.  Be  it  so  ;  but  then  what  must  be  explained  is  the  whole 
world  —  that  is,  an  infinite  machine,  constructing,  destroying, 
reproducing  machines  without  end.  Would  not  the  force, 
whatever  it  be,  that  produced  this  whole  by  one  single  act, 
be  infinitely  superior  to  that  which  would  only  be  needed 
to  explain  each  of  the  parts?  Wherein  should  the  act  of 
■creating  everything  separately  by  a  special  volition  be  superior 
to  the  act  of  creating  all  at  once  by  a  single  volition,  —  always 
reserving,  besides,  the  part  of  individual  intervention  that  the 
■cie'dtive  cause  may  have  reserved  for  itself,  and  which  doe.s 
not  belong  to  our  subject  ? 

Let  us  not  forget,  meanwhile,  that  in  this  first  part  of  our 
work,  in  this  first  book,  we  have  set  aside  the  question  of  the 
iirst  cause,  and  have  only  undertaken  to  establish  as  a  law 
the  existence  of  finalit}^  in  nature,  whatever  may  be  the  cause 
of  that  finality.  Manifold  and  special  creations,  single  crea- 
tion, spontaneous  development  of  nature,  instinct,  will,  intel- 
ligence, genius,  secret  incomprehensible  law,  final  identity  of 
.all  things,  —  all  these  hypotheses  are  outside  of  our  present 
inquiries.  Our  only  question  hitherto  is  this :  Is  there  in 
the  universe  a  tendency  in  phenomena  to  direct  themselves 
towards  an  end  ?  As  to  the  cause  of  this  tendency  we  will 
inquire  afterwards.  It  is,  then,  evident  that  the  affirmation 
or  negation  of  special  creations  has  no  bearing  on  our  inquiry, 
since  finality  may  exist  equally  on  either  hypothesis,  and 
would  still  exist  even  if  the  idea  of  creation  were  set  aside, 
and  that  of  a  spontaneous  and  interior  development  of  nature 
substituted  for  it ;  or  even  if,  in  fine,  while  asserting  that  the 
.final    cause   is  among  the  number  of  second  causes,  every 


•22Q  BOOK   I.   CHAPTER   VII. 

hypothesis  on  the  essence  and  mode  of  action  of  the  first 
cause  were  refused. 

From  all  these  considerations  it  follows  —  1st,  That  the  ex- 
clusion of  special  creations  does  not  contradict  the  hypothesis 
of  a  sole  and  general  creation,  dominated  by  the  principle  of 
the  best ;  2d,  That  even  the  exclusion  of  an  external  creation 
would  not  contradict  the  hypothesis  of  an  internal  evolution 
directed  by  the  same  principle.  Consequently  the  principle 
of  evolution,  taken  in  itself,  is  not  essentially  opposed  to  the 
principle  of  finality. 

But  if  the  theory  of  evolution  does  not  exclude  finality, 
is  it  not  still  a  means  of  dispensing  with  it  ?  If  it  does  not 
^  render  final  causes  impossible,  does  it  not  render  them  useless? 
This  is  the  real  difQculty.  The  more  that  is  allowed  to  nature, 
the  grander  will  the  divine  action,  once  admitted,  appear ;  for 
it  is  more  divine  to  make  a  great  and  powerful  machine  than 
children's  toys.  But  then,  the  more  that  is  allowed  to  nature,^ 
the  more  a  divine  action  (internal  or  external)  seems  rendered 
useless.  The  more  tlie  phenomena  are  bound  together,  the 
more  does  the  part  of  contingency  seem  to  diminish;  the 
more  uncertain  and  problematic,  consequently,  does  the  rela- 
tion to  an  end  appear.  In  the  case  of  all  being  bound  to- 
gether, and,  consequently,  all  explained,  the  intervention  of 
the  end  would  seem  supererogatory,  and  would  only  exist  in 
quality  of  a  gratuitous  hypothesis  of  the  reason,  or  of  an  act 
^  of  faith,  agreeable  to  our  imagination,  but  not  at  all  necessary 

'       .  to  our  reason.     In  a  word,  the  doctrine  of  finality,  which  can 

neither  be  demonstrated  by  experiment  nor  by  calculation, 
must,  it  seems,  be  the  more  imperiously  imposed  upon  our 
mind  the  more  disproportion  there  is  between  causes  and 
effects ;  and  it  is  this  very  disproportion  that  suggests  the 
conception  of  finality.  Science,  on  the  other  hand,  tends 
more  and  more  to  establish  the  proportion  of  causes  to  effects, 
and  seems  thereby  to  invalidate  the  finalist  hypothesis,  and 
to  render  it  more  and  more  haphazard  and  subjective. 

In  order  precisely  to  mark  the  difficulty,  let  us  for  a  moment 


THE   DOCTRINE   OF   EVOLUTION   IN   GENERAL.  227 

suppose  the  hypothesis  of  special  creations.  Here  is  an  un- 
known island  in  which  we  land :  the  earth  is  there  in  labour ; 
the  air  and  the  water  are  in  motion  ;  then  this  labour  ceases, 
and  an  organized  species  —  a  horse,  an  elephant,  or  a  man  — 
appears  suddenly  before  us.  The  causes  are,  by  the  hypothesis, 
physical  and  chemical ;  the  result  is  a  miracle  of  mechanism. 
How  can  we  comprehend  such  a  miracle,  such  a  disproportion 
between  causes  and  effects,  without  supposing  a  rational  inter- 
vention and  a  supreme  power  that  has  directed  these  forces 
of  nature  conformably  to  a  plan?  Suppose,  on  the  other 
hand,  that  this  animal  is  nothing  but  a  new  form  given  to  a 
pre-existing  animal,  in  virtue  of  a  law  of  transformation  of 
which  we  have  examples  in  nature,  since  it  is  in  virtue  of  this 
law  that  species  furnish  races  and  varieties,  the  disproportion 
between  the  cause  and  the  effect  has  disappeared ;  the  cause 
suffices  to  explain  the  effect.  If  it  sufiBces,  why  should  I  seek 
another?  I  will  thus  ascend  from  the  second  animal  to  a 
third,  from  a  third  to  a  fourth,  and  so  on ;  each  abyss  that 
we  see  at  present  being  filled,  we  shall  always  find  a  cause 
proportioned  to  the  effect,  and  the  opposite  hypothesis  will 
always  be  losing  probability,  no  longer  existing  except  in 
quality  of  free  hypothesis,  but  not  of  necessary  explanation. 
Proceeding  thus  nearer  and  nearer  to  the  minimum  of  life, 
we  shall  only  find  ourselves  stopped  by  an  ex]3erimental  diffi- 
culty. Could  this  minimum  of  life  ever  have  originated  from 
inert  matter?  But  if  the  experiment  were  once  made,  vital 
action  would  be  explained  by  physical  causes  as  well  as 
chemical  action ;  all  causes  would  correspond  to  the  effects. 
If,  in  fine,  we  ascend  to  the  origin  of  our  world,  which  ap- 
peared to  Newton  without  any  proportion  to  any  physical 
cause  whatever,  the  nebular  hypothesis  will  remove  this  last 
difficulty,  and  will  give,  in  the  rotation  of  a  single  primitive 
nebula,  a  cause  sufficient  and  adequate  for  the  effect  produced. 
No  doubt  there  still  remains  to  be  explained  the  cause  of  all 
the  universal  antecedent,  as  Mill  says ;  but  does  not  this 
absolute  cause  escape  our  grasp  ?    Is  it  not  purely  and*simply 


228  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  VII. 

the  unknown  ?  And,  besides,  we  have  hitherto  left  this  first 
cause  beyond  our  inquiries :  what  we  were  pursuing  was 
finality  in  nature.  But  does  not  this  finality  appear  to  flee 
before  us  in  proportion  as,  extending  the  domain  of  physical 
explanations,  we  render,  as  it  seems,  explanations  of  another 
kind  more  and  more  useless?  Such  is  the  formidable  doubt 
tliat  the  doctrine  of  evolution  may  raise  in  the  mind. 

However,  looking  at  it  more  closely,  it  will  appear  that  the 
preceding  difficulty  is  more  formidable  in  appearance  than  in 
reality.  In  effect,  the  disproportion  of  causes  and  effects,  far 
from  being  favourable  to  finality,  would,  on  the  contrary,  be 
the  negation  of  it.  The  words  means  and  end  just  mean  a 
cause  perfectly  proportioned  to  its  effect.  What  constitutes^ 
the  prodigy  of  the  eye  is  that  it  is  just  exactly  what  it  ought 
to  be  in  order  to  be  the  cause  of  sight.  Wherever,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  cause  is  not  proportioned  to  the  effect,  there 
is  nothing  that  could  make  us  suppose  a  means,  nor,  conse- 
quently, an  end.  We  must  well  distinguish  between  the 
wonder  produced  in  us  by  a  phenomenon  without  cause  —  or 
at  least  without  apparent  cause,  whence  originates  the  belief 
of  miracles  —  and  the  wonder,  on  the  other  hand,  which  the 
marvellous  proportion  of  causes  and  effects  produces  in  us, 
whence  arises  the  belief  in  final  causes.  In  the  first  case  what 
subjugates  and  dominates  us  is  the  idea  of  power,  in  the  second 
the  idea  of  wisdom.  Let  us  suppose,  for  instance,  that  we 
were  present  at  a  resurrection  from  the  dead ;  not  perceiving^ 
the  means,  we  will  not  be  impelled  to  suppose  an  end  (except, 
at  least,  we  have  before  obtained  that  idea  in  another  way). 
Again,  the  first  idea  that  men  formed  of  the  Deity  is  that 
of  a  destiny  which,  by  a  blind  volition,  creates  or  overthrows, 
produces  life  or  death  QavdyKq')  ;  and  it  was  only  later  that  an 
Anaxagoras  or  a  Socrates,  perceiving  the  proportion  of  causes 
and  effects,  advanced  to  Providence.  From  this  it  follows 
that  the  proof  of  the  final  cause  exactly  follows  the  progress 
made  in  the  knowledge  of  the  efficient  cause.  If  it  were 
not  known  how  light  is  produced,  and,  on  the  other  hand, 


THE  DOCTRINE   OF  EVOLUTION   IN  GENERAL.  229' 

l)Ow  we  see,  we  should  only  have  a  vague  and  obscure  notion 
of  tlie  finality  of  the  organ  of  vision.  The  same  is  the  case 
with  the  lungs  and  respiration,  with  the  heart  and  the  circula- 
tion, digestion  and  the  stomach.  We  must,  then,  have  already 
found,  physically,  a  sufficient  cause  to  be  warranted  ideally 
and  morally  to  conceive  a  final  cause.  If  the  physical  cause 
were  not  sufficient,  it  would  not  be  a  good  means,  or,  rather, 
it  would  not  be  a  means  at  all,  and  consequently  it  would  not 
imply  an  end.  It  must  not  be  said,  then,  that  the  discovery 
of  physical  causes  renders  final  causes  useless,  for  without 
these  physical  causes  the  final  cause  would  be  doubtful,  or 
even  a  nullity.  An  objection  against  this  kind  of  cause  can- 
not be  derived  from  what  is  precisely  its  necessary  condition. 

No  doubt,  strictly  speaking,  it  is  very  true  that  if  we  sup- 
pose final  causes,  it  is  because  the  efficient  or  physical  causes 
are  not  sufficient ;  otherwise  we  would  rest  content  with 
them.  But,  at  the  same  time,  they  need  to  be  physically 
sufficient,  else  they  would  not  produce  their  effect,  and 
would  not  be  true  means.  If  I  strike  iron  with  a  hammer, 
the  hammer,  strictly  speaking,  does  not  of  itself  suffice  to 
strike  the  iron,  since  it  must  be  directed,  but,  physically 
speaking,  it  must  be  sufficient  to  produce  the  effect,  else  it 
would  not  produce  it ;  so  that  one  who  onl}'  saw  the  hammer 
moving  might  believe  that  it  was  absolutely  sufficient,  while 
It  is  so  only  relatively,  which  would  be  a  profound  mistake. 

The  question,  then,  is  this  :  How  do  we  pass  from  the  purely 
relative  sufficiency  of  physical  agents  to  the  affirmation  of 
their  absolute  insufficiency?  The  fundamental  reason  we  have 
given,  and  which  the  theory  of  evolution  does  not  shake,  is 
the  agreement  of  a  whole  formed  by  divergent  and  hetero- 
geneous causes,  with  a  future  phenomenon  which  can  onh'  be 
produced  on  condition  of  this  agreement.  The  farther  one 
removes  from  a  particular  group  (namely,  from  this  or  that 
organ,  organism,  organized  species,  etc.),  the  farther  we  ascend 
from  cause  to  cause,  reducing,  step  by  step,  the  number  of  the- 
physical  agents,  it  will  become  the  more  difficult  to  explain 


•230  BOOK   I.   CHAPTER  VII. 

the  multiplicity  of  agreements  and  the  infinite  complication  of 
the  results.  If  I  take  from  a  bag  five  letters  which  I  know 
from  a  word,  it  will  even  be  a  great  chance  if,  letting  them  fall 
one  after  the  other,  I  succeed  in  forming  that  word ;  and  a 
much  greater  still,  if,  taking  them  haphazard  from  an  alphabet, 
I  were  to  make  a  verse  or  a  poem.  What,  then,  would  it  be 
if  I  made  a  machine  capable  of  producing  without  end  poems 
and  treatises  of  science  and  philosophy  ?  But  a  brain  is  such 
a  machine.  If,  now,  this  machine  were  itself  the  product  of 
another  machine  called  an  organism,  and  this  organism  the 
product  of  that  still  vaster  organism  called  a  species,  and 
the  species  the  product  of  that  superior  organism  called  the 
animal  kingdom,  and  so  on,  it  is  evident  that,  in  proportion 
^s  we  simplify  causes  in  a  physical  point  of  view,  the  more 
we  increase,  in  a  moral  point  of  view,  the  abyss  that  existed 
before  between  a  physical  cause  and  a  regulated  effect. 

There  is,  then,  in  reality  a  disproportion  between  cause  and 
effect.  But  this  disproportion  is  not  physical,  but  intellectual. 
The  physical  cause  is  a  possibility  of  producing  the  effect,  ah 
■actu  ad  posse.  It  implies  only  one  thing  —  namely,  that  there 
is  no  contradiction  between  the  properties  of  matter  and  the 
effect  produced.  But  this  possibility  would  not  suffice  ;  there 
must  be,  besides,  an  activity  or  power  that  determines  these 
properties  of  matter  to  a  jirecise  effect,  and  circumscribes  the 
endless  deviation  of  its  possible  effects  within  a  field  pre- 
scribed by  reason.  Hence  it  comes  that  matter  attains  to 
the  realization  of  something  intelligible,  to  which  it  has  no 
tendency  in  its  own  nature.^ 

1  This  difference  between  the  physical  C07iditi0}is  of  phenomena,  the  proper 
■object  of  science,  and  their  intellectual  conditions,  the  object  of  metaphysics,  is 
.allowed  by  the  scientists.  '  In  saying  that  life  is  the  directive  idea  or  the 
evolutive  force  of  being,'  says  CI.  Bernard,  '  we  simply  express  the  idea  of  a 
unity  in  the  succession  ....  Our  mind  lays  hold  of  this  unity  as  a  concep- 
tion imposed  upon  it,  and  it  explains  it  by  a  force.  The  mistake  would  be  to 
believe  that  that  metaphysical  force  is  active  after  the  fashion  of  a  physical 
force.  This  conception  does  not  pass  beyond  the  intellectual  domain.  We  must 
here,  then,  separate  the  metaphysical  world  from  the  physical  phenomenal  world, 
which  serves  as  its  basis.'  —  Definition  de  la  vie,  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  15th 
.May  1875. 


THE   DOCTRINE   OF  EVOLUTION   IN   GENERAL.  231 

Thus  the  hypothesis  of  evolution  does  not  give  in  the  end 
one  reason  more  than  every  other  mechanical  system,  to 
explain  by  agents  purely  physical  the  order  of  the  universe. 
It  does  not  explain  better  how  from  a  primitive  chaos  a 
regular  system  should  have  emerged.  Its  ideal  would  be  to 
reduce  all  to  the  laws  of  motion  ;  but  the  laws  of  motion, 
taken  in  themselves,  as  we  have  seen,  would  not  produce  one 
form  rather  than  another,  and  do  not  at  all  contain  the  idea 
of  a  formation  of  system.^  Matter  remains  matter  —  namely, 
the  substratum  or  condition  of  the  development  of  phenomena ; 
force  equally  remains  what  it  is  —  the  cause  of  motion.  In 
neither  of  these  two  elements  is  contained  the  principle  of  a 
rational  development.  At  the  least,  a  third  principle  would 
need  to  be  added  —  namely,  the  idea  which  will  serve  for 
directive  cause  ;  and  this  would  be  to  revert  to  the  doctrine 
of  finality. 

^  bee  above,  cbap.  vi.  p.  17d. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

THE  DOCTRINE  OF  EVOLUTION:  LAMARCK  AND  DARWIN. 

'T71R0M  the  theory  of  evolution  in  general,  let  us  pass  to 
-■-  one  of  its  most  remarkable  applications,  —  that  which 
has  most  struck  the  scientific  and  philosophical  world,  and 
which  by  many  is  confounded  with  evolutionism  itself,  — 
namely,  the  doctrine  of  transformism. 

We  here  have  not  to  study  transformism  in  itself,  —  that 
is  the  task  of  zoologists ;  we  have  not  to  take  sides,  whether 
pro  or  contra,  in  this  debate  ;  and  no  more  have  we  to  choose 
between  the  different  transformist  hvpotheses.  The  question 
for  us  always  presents  itself  under  the  same  form  —  namely^ 
Can  transformism,  supposing  it  established  and  demonstrated, 
dispense  with  the  principle  of  finality  ? 

Lamarck  is  known  to  have  been  the  founder  of  transform- 
ism.i  We  must,  therefore,  begin  with  the  examination  of  his 
system. 

Lamarck  employs  three  principles  to  explain  organic  adap- 
tations and  the  progressive  development  of  animals.  These 
principles  are,  the  medium,  habit,  and  need. 

That  the  physical  medium  —  that  is,  the  combination  of 
external  circumstances  in  which  the  animal  is  plunged  — 
exercises  a  certain  influence  on  the  strength  and  even  the 


1  The  pages  which  follow  on  Lamarck  and  Darwin  were  partly  published  for 
the  first  time  in  1863,  four  years  after  the  first  edition  of  Darwin  (1859).  The 
ideas,  such  as  they  are,  that  I  here  put  forth  cannot,  then,  have  been  borrowed 
from  the  numerous  works  afterwards  published  on  the  same  subject.  We  desire 
especially  to  remark,  what  had  not  been  well  understood  in  our  first  publication, 
although  we  had  said  it  in  express  terms,  that  it  is  not  the  transformist  doctrine 
in  itself  that  we  discuss  (a  question  for  which  we  declare  ourselves  incompetent), 
hut  the  interpretation  of  that  doctrine  in  the  mechanical  sense  —  that  is,  in  the 
sense  of  the  system  of  fortuitous  combinations. 
232 


THE   DOCTRINE   OF   EVOLUTION  :    LAMARCK   AND   DARWIN.      233 

api)eiirance  of  its  organs,  is  an  incontestable  fact.  But  how 
far  this  action  and  influence  may  go  is  not  yet  precisely 
known,  and  we  do  not  intend  to  take  part  in  this  controversy .^ 
As  yet  it  does  not  appear  that  the  actions  of  the  medium,  so 
far  as  we  can  know  and  observe  them,  penetrate  very  deeply 
into  the  organization.  What  would  seem  easiest  to  explain 
would  be  the  colour  of  the  skin,  and  yet  it  is  still  matter  of 
dispute  among  anthropologists.  The  most  important  of  these 
external  actions  are  those  which  we  obtain  by  domestication ; 
but  have  we  ever  created  a  single  organ?  However  great 
may  be  the  part  played  by  these  external  agents,  and  were 
we  to  make  of  the  animal  a  sort  of  soft  paste,  as  Cuvier  said, 
where  would  we  find  a  mould  capable  of  producing  the  com- 
plex organs,  so  skilfully  arranged,  which  the  higher  animals 
present?  For  instance,  certain  animals  breathe  by  means 
of  lungs,  and  others  by  gills,  and  these  two  kinds  of  organs 
are  perfectly  appropriate  to  the  two  media  of  the  air  and  the 
water.  Can  we  conceive  that  these  two  media  have  been 
able  to  produce  apparatus  so  complicated  and  so  well  adapted  ? 
Of  all  the  facts  established  by  science,  is  there  a  single  one 
which  could  justify  so  great  an  extension  of  the  action  of 
media  ?  If  it  be  said  that  by  medium  we  must  not  merely 
understand  the  element  in  which  the  animal  lives,  but  every 
sort  of  external  circumstance,  I  want  to  be  told  what  is  pre- 
cisely the  circumstance  that  has  made  one  organ  take  the 
form  of  lungs,  another  the  form  of  gills?  what  is  the  precise 
cause  that  has  made  the  heart,  that  powerful  and  easy 
hydraulic  machine,  the  motions  of  which  are  so  industriously 
combined,  to  receive  the  blood  that  comes  from  all  the  organs 
of  the  body,  and  to  send  it  back  to  them  ?  what,  in  fine,  is 
the  cause  that  has  bound  all  these  organs  together,  and  has 
made  of  the  living  being,  according  to  Cuvier's  expression, 
'  a  closed  system,  all  whose  parts  concur  in  a  common  action 
by  a  reciprocal  reaction  '  ?     What  will  it  be  if  we  proceed  to 

1  See  on  this  point,  Faivre,  La  variability  des  especes,  chap.  ii.  (Biblioth. 
philosoph.  contempor.,  Paris  1868). 


234  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  VIII. 

the  organs  of  sense,  —  to  the  most  wonderful,  the  eye  of  man 
or  of  the  eagle?  Darwin  himself  stops  a  moment,  almost 
frightened  by  this  problem.  The  spirit  of  the  system  which 
animates  him  makes  him  pass  over  it ;  but  among  scientists 
who  have  no  system,  is  there  one  who  would  venture  to 
maintain  that  he  in  any  way  perceives  how  the  light  could 
have  by  its  action  produced  the  organ  that  is  appropriate  to 
it,  or  even,  if  it  is  not  the  light,  what  external  agent  is 
powerful,  clever,  ingenious  enough,  a  sufficiently  good  geom- 
etrician, to  construct  that  marvellous  apparatus  which  caused 
Newton  to  say :  '  Could  he  who  made  the  eye  have  been 
ignorant  of  the  laws  of  optics  ?  ' 

For  the  rest,  what  proves  better  than  any  reasoning  the 
insufficiency  of  the  principle  of  media,  is  that  those  naturalists 
most  favourable  to  that  principle  have  not  been  satisfied  with 
it,  and  have  employed  others  concurrently  with  it.  Just 
here  there  is  an  important  remark  to  be  made  —  namely,  that 
the  naturalist  who  is  held  to  have  attached  the  greatest 
importance  to  media,  Lamarck,  understands  that  action  in 
a  very  different  sense  than  what  might  be  expected  from  the 
received  opinion,  for  he  attributes  to  the  medium  rather  a 
perturbing  than  a  plastic  action. 

The  fundamental  law,  according  to  Lamarck,  is  the  pro- 
gressive complication  of  organisms.  But  it  is  not  the  medium 
that  produces  this  progression.  The  medium,  or  modifying 
cause,  on  the  contrary,  does  nothing  but  disturb  it ;  it  is  it 
that  produces  interruptions,  hiatus,  veritable  disorders,  and 
which  prevents  the  animal  series  from  presenting  that  gradual 
and  continuous  scale  that  Bonnet  had  defended,  according  to 
that  celebrated  principle  :  non  datur  saltus  in  natura.  What, 
then,  is  the  true  formative  principle  of  the  animals,  according 
to  Lamarck  ?  It  is  a  principle  distinct  from  and  independent 
of  the  medium,  —  a  principle  which,  left  to  itself,  would  pro- 
duce an  uninterrupted  series  in  a  perfectly  graduated  order 
—  namely,  what  he  calls  the  power  of  life.  '  All  here  rests,' 
he  says,  '  on  two  essential  and  regulative  bases  of  observed 


THE   DOCTRINE   OF  EVOLUTION  :    LAMARCK  AND   DARWIN.      235 

facts  and  true  zoological  principles  —  namely,  1st,  On  the 
power  of  life,  the  results  of  which  are  the  increasing  compli- 
cation of  the  organism,  and,  consequently,  the  progress  men- 
tioned ;  2d,  On  the  modifying  cause,  the  products  of  which 
are  interruptions,  various  and  irregular  deviations  in  the 
power  of  life.  It  follows  from  these  two  essential  bases  — 
first,  that  there  exists  a  real  progression  in  the  composition 
of  the  organization  of  animals,  which  the  modifying  cause 
has  not  been  able  to  prevent ;  then,  that  there  is  no  sustained 
and  regular  progression  in  the  distribution  of  the  races  of 
animals,  because  the  modifying  cause  has  almost  everywhere 
varied  what  nature  would  have  formed  regularly,  if  that 
modifying  cause  had  not  acted.'  ^ 

This  distinction  between  the  perturbing  action  of  the 
medium  and  its  plastic  action  is  of  the  utmost  importance 
for  the  question  that  occupies  us ;  for  the  appropriation  of 
organs  to  functions  being  no  longer  the  effect  of  the  medium, 
but  of  life,  the  problem  remains  entire,  and  the  question  still 
remains  how  life,  a  blind  and  unconscious  cause,  can  adapt 
all  the  parts  of  the  animal  to  their  respective  uses,  and  bind 
them  together  in  a  common  action.  According  to  this  doc- 
trine, the  medium  can  no  more  be  employed  as  cause,  since 
it  is  only  an  obstacle,  and  without  it  the  organic  forms  would 
be  much  more  regular  and  more  harmonious  than  they 
are. 

The  medium  being,  then,  by  the  confession  even  of  Lamarck, 
a  principle  insufficient  to  explain  the  production  of  organic 
forms,  and,  consequently,  their  adaptation,  will  what  he  calls 
the  power  of  life  be  more  fortunate,  and  by  what  means  will 
it  obtain  this  effect  ? 

Here  Lamarck  appeals  to  two  new  agents  which  we  have 
already  mentioned,  habit  and  need.     He  lays  down  two  laws, 

1  Lamarck,  Histoire  des  animaux  sa7is  vertebres,  t.  i.  This  important  dis- 
tinction between  the  modifyinf/  and  the  plastic  power  does  not  seem  to  have 
been  remarked  by  any  naturalist.  Yet  it  entirely  changes  the  meaning  of 
Lamarck's  philosophy,  since  the  true  agent  becomes  the  internal,  not  the 
external  agent. 


|.^M.LA4^A/^V. 


286  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  VIII. 

—  first,  that  need  produces  organs ;  second,  that  habit  devel- 
ops and  strengthens  them. 

Let  the  difference  of  these  principles  from  the  preceding  be 
well  remarked.  In  the  hypothesis  of  the  medium  the  modi- 
fying cause  is  entirely  external ;  nothing  proceeds  from  the 
transformed  object.  It  is  like  soft  wax  in  relation  to  the  hand 
that  models  and  kneads  it.  So  is  it  with  those  rocks  that 
under  the  action  of  water  are  hollowed  out  and  become 
grottoes,  temples,  or  palaces.  Everything  proves  that  here 
there  is  no  premeditated  adaptation.  Is  it  the  same  when 
you  employ  the  power  of  habit  or  of  need  ?  Certainly  not, 
for  these  are  not  external  but  internal  causes;  although 
determined  by  external  circumstances,  yet  they  act  from 
within :  they  are  co-operating  causes  with  the  medium.  It 
is  they,  and  not  the  media,  that  accommodate  the  living  being 
to  its  conditions  of  existence.  Well,  supposing  that  these 
causes  could  give  account  of  all  organic  adaptations  (which  is 
more  than  doubtful),  I  say  that  nothing  would  yet  have  been 
gained  thereby,  for  this  power  of  accommodation  is  itself  a 
marvellous  adaptation.  Here  it  is  no  longer  merely,  as  before, 
a  physical  cause,  modelling  the  animal  or  vegetable  from  with- 
out :  it  is  an  internal  power  co-operating  with  the  external 
action,  and  accommodating  itself  to  the  needs  of  the  living 
being.  What !  there  is  in  the  living  being  a  power  such  that 
if  the  medium  be  modified,  the  living  being  is  equally  modi- 
fied, to  be  able  to  live  in  that  new  medium.  There  is  a  power 
of  accommodation  to  external  circumstances  to  take  advan- 
tage of  them,  to  apply  them  to  its  needs.  How  should  we 
fail  to  see  finality  in  such  a  power !  Imagine  that  the  living 
being  had  the  hard  and  inflexible  nature  of  a  stone  or  metal, 
such  change  of  medium  would  become  for  it  a  cause  of 
destruction  and  death ;  but  nature  has  made  it  supple  and 
flexible.  But  in  such  a  flexibility  I  cannot  help  recognising 
a  thought,  preservative  of  life  in  the  universe. 

It  will  become  more  evident  if  we  examine  the  thing  more 
closely.     We  must  here  admit  two  cases:  either  the  animal 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  EVOLUTION  :    LAMARCK  AND   DARWIN.      237 

is  conscious  of  its  need,  or  it  is  unconscious ;  for  the  lower 
animals,  according  to  Lamarck,  are  devoid  of  perception  as 
well  as  the  vegetables.  In  this  second  case  Lamarck  main- 
tains that  the  production  of  an  organ  has  an  entirely 
mechanical  cause  ;  for  instance,  '  a  new  motion  produced  in 
the  fluids  of  the  animal.'  But  then,  if  the  organ  is  only 
the  result  of  a  mechanical  cause,  of  a  motion  of  fluids,  without 
any  feeling,  and  therefore  without  any  efi'ort,  how  is  it  found 
to  have  some  adaptation  to  the  needs  of  the  animal  ?  How 
shall  the  fluids  converge  precisely  towards  the  point  where 
the  production  of  an  organ  would  be  necessary?  And  how 
should  they  produce  an  organ  appropriate  to  the  medium  in 
which  the  animal  lives  ?  To  say  that  every  species  of  organs 
is  produced,  —  some  useful,  others  useless,  others  injurious,  — 
and  that  the  animal  only  exists  when  the  number  of  use- 
ful organs  prevails,  is  not  this  simply  to  revert  to  the 
hj^pothesis  of  Epicurus,  and  to  attribute  all  to  chance,  which 
we  would  avoid  ?  Besides,  do  the  facts  afford  reason  for  this 
hypothesis  ?  If  the  combinations  of  organs  are  fortuitous,  the 
number  of  useless  or  injurious  organs  should  be  infinitely 
greater  than  it  is  (supposing  even  that  there  is  a  single  one 
of  this  kind,  which  is  not  proved)  ;  for  these  two  conditions 
do  not  absolutely  exclude  life.  And  to  say  that  that  has  been 
so  formerly  is  to  plunge  into  the  unknown,  not  to  men- 
tion that  palseontological  discoveries  do  not  warrant  us  to 
think  that  the  fossil  animals  had  been  worse  made  than 
those  of  the  present. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  a  felt  need  that  should  itself 
determine  the  direction  of  the  fluids,  how  shall  the  fluids  be 
directed  exactly  to  where  the  need  exists,  and  produce  pre- 
cisely the  kind  of  organs  necessary  for  the  satisfaction  of  the 
need  ?  An  animal  feels  the  need  of  flying  to  escape  danger- 
ous enemies ;  it  makes  an  effort  to  move  its  members  in  the 
direction  in  which  it  would  most  easily  escape  from  their 
pursuit.     How  shall  this  effort  and  need  combined  succeed 


in  making  the  anterior  members  take  the  form  of  the  wing, 

V 


1      ' 


U'. 


238  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  VIII. 

that  machine  so  delicate  and  so  wisely  combined  that  all  the 
acutest  mechanism  of  man  can  hardly  guess  how  it  can  be 
imitated?  That  the  motion  of  fluids  should  bring  about 
such  difficult  combinations,  there  is  needed  something  else 
than  a  vague  need  and  an  uncertain  effort. 

Lamarck  owns  '  that  it  is  very  difficult  to  prove  by  obser- 
vation '  that  need  produces  the  organ  ;  but  he  maintains  that 
the  truth  of  this  primary  law  is  deduced  logically  from  the 
second  law,  attested  by  experience,  according  to  which  the 
organ  is  developed  by  experience  and  habit.  Thus,  according 
to  him,  because  habit  develops  organs,  it  follows  that  need  can 
create  them.  Is  there  not  an  abyss  between  these  two  prop- 
ositions ?  What !  because  an  organ  being  given,  grows  or 
develops  by  exercise,  it  shall  therefore  be  inferred  that  need 
can  produce  an  organ  that  does  not  exist!  Can  the  pro- 
duction of  an  organ  that  does  not  exist  be  assimilated  to 
the  development  of  an  organ  that  does  exist?  We  see, 
indeed,  that  exercise  increases  the  size,  the  strength,  the 
facility  of  action  of  an  organ,  but  not  that  it  multiplies  it 
and  changes  its  essential  conditions.  The  mountebank  has 
suppler  muscles  than  other  men.  Has  he  others?  —  has  he 
more  ?  —  are  they  arranged  differently  ?  However  great  the 
power  of  habit  may  be  supposed,  can  it,  in  good  faith,  go 
the  length  of  creating  ?  ^ 

I  know  that  the  theory  of  the  unity  of  composition  may  be 
appealed  to,  and  it  may  be  maintained,  with  the  partisans  of 
Geoffrey  Saint  Hilaire,  that  all  organs  are  at  bottom  only  one 
and  the  same  organ  diversely  developed ;  that,  consequently, 
exercise  and  habit  have  been  able  to  produce  successively^ 
though  slowly,  those  diversities  of  form  which  are  only  dif- 
ferences of  development.     But  is  not  the  doctrine  of  organic 

1  '  Is  there  not  room  to  distinguish,'  says  M.  Cournot,  '  between  the  per- 
fections and  the  abasements  of  the  organism,  between  the  enlargement  and 
the  reduction  of  parts  of  a  type  already  constituted,  and  the  increase  of 
organic  composition,  approaching  the  constitution  of  a  new  type  ? '  '  We  must 
not  confound,'  the  same  author  again  rightly  remarks,  'the  merit  of  inventing; 
with  that  which  consists  of  arranging  and  developing.'  —  Cournot,  Mat^rialisme^ 
ritaHsmr,  rationalisme,  p.  167. 


fHE   DOCTRINE   OF  EVOLUTION  :    LAMARCK  AND   DARWIN.      239- 

unity,  carried  so  far,  a  hypothesis  itself?  Have  the  great 
objections  of  Cuvier  to  this  hypothesis  been  all  set  aside 
by  modern  science  ?  Would  not  the  unity  of  type  and  com- 
position in  the  animal  series  be  an  ideal  and  an  abstraction^ 
rather  than  the  exact  and  positive  expression  of  the  reality  ? 
And,  besides,  would  it  suffice  to  show  that  two  different  organs- 
are  analogous  to  each  other,  —  that  is,  according  to  Geoffroy 
Saint  Hilaire,  situated  in  the  same  place,  and  bound  by  the 
same  relatirns  to  the  neighbouring  organs,  —  in  order  thence- 
to  conclude,  that  one  of  these  organs  can  have  taken  the 
form  of  the  other  ?  No ;  we  would  need  to  see  that  organ; 
itself  pass  from  one  form  to  another,  otherwise  the  analogy 
does  not  prove  the  transition.  Thus,  for  instance,  because- 
the  trunk  of  the  elephant  is  the  analogue  of  the  human  nose, 
it  does  not  follow  that  the  nose  can  be  changed  into  a  trunk, 
and  the  trunk  into  a  nose.  Besides,  Geoffroy  Saint  Hilaire- 
has  taken  care  himself  to  separate  his  hypothesis  from  that 
of  Lamarck,  and  wittily  said  that  we  may  indeed  maintain 
that  a  palace  and  a  cottage  answer  to  the  same  fundamental 
type,  without  thereby  affirming  that  the  palace  had  begun  by- 
being  a  cottage,  or  that  the  cottage  will  become  a  palace. 

For  some  years  this  law  of  Lamarck  has  been  studied 
more  closely  and  experimentally,  according  to  which  organs- 
are  modified  by  exercise.  M.  Marey  mentions  precise  and 
proving  facts  which  show  us  how  function  makes  the  organ, 
especially  in  the  muscular  and  osseous  systems.^  But  these 
facts  seem  to  prove  nothing  but  the  plasticity  and  suppleness 
of  living  forms,  attribvites  which  themselves  imply  finality^ 
as  we  said  just  now,  and  which  form  part  of  the  marvellous 
conditions  of  adaptation  the  organized  being  enjoys.  What- 
ever be  the  origin  of  organized  forms,  a  certain  plasticity  of 
forms  is  necessary ;  and  there  is  nothing  in  its  existence  to- 
contradict  the  law  of  finality,  since  it  is  itself  implicitly  con- 
tained in  that  law.     The  plasticity  of  organic  forms  proves 

1  R.  Marey,  Ze  transformisme  et  la  physiologie  experimentale  {Cours  du  College 
dr.  France,  Revue  scientifique,  2e  se'rie,  t.  iv.  p.  818)- 


J240  BOOK  I.   CHAPTER  VIII. 

that  the  animal  can  exert  a  sort  of  industry  upon  itself,  can 
treat  itself  as  an  instrument,  as  a  tool  which  is  prepared  for 
an  end.  As  I  can  manipulate  wood  or  metal  by  the  hammer 
-or  by  iron,  so  I  can  utilize  my  muscles  with  respect  to  my 
needs.  Do  not  all  these  facts  go  to  support  the  analogy  we 
have  so  often  appealed  to  between  the  industry  of  man  and 
that  of  nature  ?  and  do  not  they  imply  on  the  part  of  nature 
precisely  what  human  industry  implies  —  namely,  the  ten- 
dency towards  an  end  ?  Not  only  has  the  animal  an  end  in 
the  efforts  it  makes  to  transform  its  organs,  but  nature  itself 
has  also  had  an  end  in  enduing  the  organism  with  a  mallea- 
bility and  a  faculty  of  adaptation  necessary  to  the  preserva- 
tion and  development  of  life. 

The  facts,  moreover,  suffice  to  prove,  what  is  not  disputed, 
that  organs  are  modified  by  exercise,  consequently  that  func- 
tion perfects  or  adapts  to  itself  its  proper  mechanism.  But 
does  it  go  the  length  of  creating  the  mechanism  itself?  How 
could  there  be  function  before  the  mechanism  existed?  Let 
us  suppose  an  animal  deprived  of  all  locomotive  apparatus. 
How  could  it  be  said  that  the  function  of  motion  exists 
before  being  exercised  ?  Here,  then,  there  can  be  no  ques- 
tion of  function,  but  only  of  the  desire  or  idea  of  function. 
And,  again,  how  could  there  be  in  an  animal  the  idea  of  a 
function  before  it  had  exercised  it,  and  without  it  having 
had  experience  of  it  ?  The  sole  question,  then,  is  of  a  sim- 
ple need ;  and  thus  we  revert  to  the  first  law  of  Lamarck, 
a  principle  which  M.  Marey  himself  declares  to  be  'very 
vague,'  for  how  can  it  be  admitted  that  the  need  of  seeing 
produced  eyes,  the  need  of  hearing  ears  ?  And,  once  more, 
if  it  were  so,  what  an  extraordinary  adaptation  of  the  course 
of  the  fluid,  and  of  the  labour  of  the  elements,  placing  them- 
selves so  wonderfully  in  accord  with  the  needs  of  the  animal ! 
Could  this  be  anything  else  than  what  we  call  finality  ? 

In  fine,  in  the  examples  quoted,  the  modifications  of  the 
organs  are  directed  towards  their  end  by  the  intelligence  and 
will  of  the  animal ;   and  one  can  easily  understand  that  if 


THE   DOCTRINE    OF   iiVOLUTION  ;    LAMARCK   AND    DARWIN.       241 

llie  organic  matter  is  endued  with  a  certain  pliability,  it  will 
by  degrees  adapt  itself  to  the  end  pursued.  Suppose  an 
animal  indifferently  adapted  for  leaping,  and  which  yet  can 
only  get  its  food  by  leaping,  it  will  develop  in  itself  by  exer- 
cise an  aptitude  for  leaping,  and  the  muscles  which  serve  for 
that  function.  It  will  thus  be  itself  the  proper  cause  of  the 
adaptation  of  its  organs.  But  in  the  case  of  an  animal  with- 
out any  species  of  intelligence,  and  endued  only  with  a  dif- 
fused sensation,  or  of  a  vegetable  in  which  nothing  indicates 
sensation,  what  will  determine  the  motion  and  guide  the 
movements  in  the  favourable  direction,  instead  of  lettinsr 
them  go  in  all  directions  ?  The  plant  needs  light,  and  knows 
Jiow  to  take  the  direction  necessar}'"  to  find  it.  Who  can 
have  given  it  this  habit,  supposing  it  not  to  be  primordial  ? 
Whence  comes  this  accord  between  the  passive  need  of  the 
vegetable  for  the  light,  and  the  precise  motion  that  carries  it 
towards  it?  By  what  chance  does  it  find  of  itself  the  direc- 
tion dictated  by  a  mute,  insensible,  unconscious,  unintelli- 
gent need  ?  But  if  we  suppose  in  the  plant  a  vague  desire,  a 
dim  sensation,  a  tendency  more  or  less  blind  or  more  or  less 
■conscious,  which  might  serve  as  a  motive  and  directing  prin- 
•ciple,  it  is  not  perceived  that  it  is  precisely  the  hypothesis  of 
finality  that  is  generalized :  in  place  of  being  nowhere  it  will 
he  everywhere,  and  will  be  the  very  foundation  of  nature. 

I  will  not  dwell  longer  on  the  theory  of  Lamarck,  its 
insufficiency  being  demonstrated  by  the  very  theory  which 
Mr.  Darwin  has  tried  to  substitute  for  it.  We  are  entitled 
to  call  in  question  the  modifying  power  of  media  and  habits, 
when  this  naturalist  tells  us  '  that  he  has  no  great  confidence 
in  the  action  of  such  agents.'  We  must  now  examine  what 
he  substitutes  for  them. 

The  fact  that  has  furnished  a  point  of  departure  to  the 
system  of  Mr.  Darwin  is  so  prosaic  and  vulgar,  that  a  meta- 
physician would  never  have  deigned  to  cast  eyes  upon  it. 
Metaphysics  must,  however,  accustom  itself  to  look  not  only 
above  our  heads,  but  around  and  beneath  us.     What !  did 


242  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  VIII. 

not  Plato  admit  that  there  is  a  divine  idea  even  of  the  dung- 
hill, even  of  mud  ?  Let  us  not  disdain,  then,  to  enter  with 
Mr.  Darwin  the  stalls  of  breeders,  to  seek  with  him  the 
secrets  of  the  bovine,  equine,  and  porcine  industry,  and  in 
these  productions  of  human  art  to  discover,  if  possible,  the 
artifices  of  nature.  The  facts  of  nature  are  joined  together 
by  a  bond  so  fine  and  continuous,  and  accidents  the  most 
insignificant  in  appearance  are  so  governed  by  general  and 
permanent  reasons,  that  nothing  can  be  indifferent  to  the 
meditations  of  the  thinker,  especially  facts  which  touch  so 
closely  the  mystery  of  life. 

The  breeding  of  cattle  is  a  veritable  industry,  and  an; 
industry  that  has  precise  and  strict  rules  and  methods  that 
are  followed.  The  most  important  of  these  methods  is  what 
is  called  the  method  of  selection  or  election.  It  is  as  follows ; 
When  he  wishes  to  obtain  the  amelioration  of  a  breed  in 
a  definite  direction,  the  breeder  will  choose  individuals  the- 
most  remarkable  in  respect  to  the  quality  he  is  seeking  :  if  it 
be  agility,  the  most  slender ;  if  intelligence,  the  finest,  most 
ingenious,  and  clever.  The  products  that  will  result  from 
this  first  choice  will  possess  the  qualities  of  their  parents  in 
a  greater  degree,  for  it  is  known  that  individual  characters- 
are  transmitted  and  accumulated  by  heredity.  If  these' 
products  be  operated  on  as  was  done  with  the  first  individ- 
uals, the  quality  sought  will  go  on  constantly  increasing,  and 
at  the  end  of  several  generations  there  will  be  obtained  those- 
fine  breeds,  all  of  human  creation,  which  agricultural  coun- 
tries contend  for,  and  which,  by  skilful  crossing,  give  place- 
to  other  new  breeds,  or  at  least  to  innumerable  varieties. 

Well,  what  man  does  by  his  art,  why  should  nature  not 
do  for  its  part?  Why  not  admit  a  sort  of  natural  selection., 
which  may  have  occurred  in  the  course  of  time  ?  Why  not 
admit  that  certain  individual  characteristics,  which  were 
originally  the  result  of  certain  accidents,  have  thenceforth, 
been  transmitted  and  accumulated  in  a  hereditar}^  way,  and 
that  by  this  means  very  different  varieties  have  been  produced 


THE   DOCTRINE   OF   EVOLUTION  :    LAMARCK  AND   DARWIN.       248 

in  the  same  species,  as  we  produce  them  ourselves  ?  Let  us 
admit,  meanwhile,  with  Mr.  Darwiu,  a  second  principle,  with- 
out which  the  first  could  not  produce  all  that  it  contains  — 
namely,  the  principle  of  the  struggle  for  life.  It  is  as  follows  : 
All  beings  in  nature  contend  for  food ;  they  all  struggle  to 
live,  to  exist.  But  there  is  only  for  a  certain  given  number 
■of  animals  a  certain  amount  of  subsistence.  All,  then,  can- 
not alike  be  preserved.  In  this  struggle  the  feeble  necessarily 
succumb,  and  the  victory  is  to  the  strongest.  The  strong 
alone  survive,  and  establish  the  balance  between  population 
and  subsistence.  We  here  recognise  the  celebrated  law  of 
Malthus,  that  has  caused  so  much  discussion  in  political 
economy,  and  which  Mr.  Darwin  transfers  from  man  to  the  j 
whole  animal  kingdom.  ' 

Granting  this  law,  and  it  is  indubitable,  let  us  see  how 
natural  selection  acts.  The  individuals  of  a  given  species, 
^which  shall  have  acquired  by  accident  a  character  more  or  , 
less  advantageous  for  their  preservation,  and  have  transmit-  , 
ted  it  to  their  descendants,  will  be  better  armed  for  the  strug-  ' 
gle  for  life,  they  will  have  more  chance  of  being  preserved ; 
and  when  that  character  shall  have  been  perfected  by  time, 
it  will  constitute  for  this  variety  a  true  superiority  in  its 
species.  Imagine,  now,  some  change  in  the  surrounding  me- 
dium causing  this  advantage,  which  had  not  yet  been  of  much 
use,  to  become  all  at  once  very  necessary,  as  in  a  sudden 
refrigeration  a  longer  and  tliicker  fur ;  those  that  have  ob- 
tained this  advantage  will  profit  by  it  and  survive,  while  the 
others  will  perish.  It  is  evident  that  the  adaptation,  on  this 
hypothesis,  will  result  from  a  coincidence  between  the  acci- 
dental production  of  an  advantage  perfected  by  heredity,  and 
an  accidental  change  of  medium. 

Let  us  see  now  how  Mr.  Darwiu,  by  the  hel])  of  these  prin- 
ciples, succeeds  in  explaining  the  origin  of  species  —  namely, 
that  in  one  and  the  same  given  type  there  may  accidentally 
be  produced  advantages  of  varied  nature,  and  which  do  not 
compete  ;  each  profits  by  its  own  without  injuring  that  which 


244  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  VIII. 

another  has.  Hence  different  varieties,  well  armed,  altnough 
differently,  for  the  struggle  for  life.  Those,  on  the  other 
hand,  that  have  remained  faithful  to  the  original  type,  and 
have  acquired  no  new  advantage  fitted  to  preserve  them  in  a 
new  medium,  perish.  Thus  the  primitive  type  disappears ; 
only  the  extreme  varieties  subsist;  and  these  varieties,  be- 
coming in  course  of  time  more  and  more  dissimilar,  will  be 
called  species,  because  the  traces  of  their  common  origin  will 
have  been  lost. 

Let  us  apply  this  theory  to  an  example  but  little  flattering 
to  the  human  species,  but  which  is  here  so  indicated  that  it 
would  be  a  false  scruple  not  to  go  that  length.  One  of  the 
most  urgent  objections  made  to  Darwin  is  that,  if  his  theory 
be  true,  it  must  be  admitted  that  man  began  by  being  an  ape, 
which  is  very  humiliating  ;  to  which  a  partisan  of  Mr.  Darwin 
has  replied,  '  that  he  would  rather  be  a  perfected  ape  than  a 
degenerate  Adam.'  But  on  the  theory  of  Mr,  Darwin,  it  is 
not  true  that  man  descends  from  the  ape ;  for  if  he  did,  as  he 
has  a  great  advantage  over  him,  he  would  have  conquered 
him  in  the  struggle  for  life,  and,  consequently,  would  have 
absorbed  and  destroyed  him.  What  is  true  is,  that  the  ape 
and  man  are  both  derived  from  one  and  the  same  type  that 
is  lost,  and  of  which  they  are  the  divergent  deviations.  In  a 
word,  on  this  hypothesis  apes  are  not  our  ancestors,  but  they 
are  our  cousins-german. 

Let  us  generalize  this  example.  We  need  not  say  that  the 
vertebrates  have  been  molluscs,  nor  the  mammalia  fish  or 
birds;  but  the  four  sub-kingdoms  would  be  four  distinct 
branches  proceeding  from  one  primitive  stock.  In  each  sub- 
kingdom  the  primitive  type  would  be  equally  diversified,  and 
it  is  by  these  successive  determinations,  this  addition  of  differ- 
ences, this  accumulation  of  new  characters  in  always  diver- 
ging series,  that  the  actual  species  have  been  produced.  In 
a  word,  the  organized  kingdom  has  always  gone  from  the 
general  to  the  particular,  and,  as  would  be  said  in  logic,  by 
continually  increasing  the  content  of  its  comprehension. 


THE   DOCTRINE   OF  EVOLUTION  :    LAMARCK  AND   DARWIN.       245- 

Such  I  believe  to  be,  in  its  essential  bases,  and  without 
changing  anything,  the  system  of  Mr.  Darwin,  —  a  system 
which  he  defends  with  mental  resources  truly  inexhaustible,, 
and,  above  all,  with  admirable  candour ;  for,  unlike  inventors 
of  systems  who  only  set  forth  the  facts  favourable  to  their 
ideas,  and  are  silent  as  to  those  that  are  contrary,  Mr.  Dar- 
win devotes  the  half  of  his  book  to  stating  the  difficulties  and 
objections  that  may  be  raised  by  his  principle,  some  of  which 
are  so  formidable  that  he  has  great  difficulty  in  diminishing 
their  weight.  Has  he,  however,  come  to  the  capital  difficulty 
that  weighs  upon  the  whole  system,  and  which,  for  our  part, 
holds  the  mind  in  suspense  ?  We  do  not  believe  it,  and  this 
is  what  we  will  try  to  prove. 

The  real  rock  of  Mr.  Darwin's  theory,  the  dangerous  and 
slippery  point,  is  the  passage  from  artificial  selection  to 
natural :  to  establish  that  a  blind  nature,  without  design,  can 
have  attained,  by  the  coincidence  of  circumstances,  the  same 
result  that  man  obtains  by  a  reflecting  and  calculating  indus- 
try. In  artificial  selection,  in  effect,  let  us  not  forget,  man 
chooses  the  elements  of  his  combinations :  to  attain  a  desired 
end,  he  chooses  two  factors,  both  endued  with  the  character 
he  wishes  to  obtain  or  perfect.  If  there  was  some  difference 
between  the  two  factors,  the  product  would  be  uncertain  or 
mixed;  or  even  when  the  character  of  one  of  the  factors  pre- 
dominated in  it,  it  would  still  be  enfeebled  by  its  mixture 
with  a  contrary  character. 

In  order  that  natural  selection  might  obtain  the  same 
results,  —  that  is,  the  accumulation  and  perfecting  of  some 
characteristic,  —  nature  would  have  to  be  capable  of  choice  ; 
in  a  word,  the  male,  endued  with  such  a  characteristic,  must 
unite  with  a  female  just  like  himself.  In  this  case,  I  admit 
that  the  multiple  of  those  two  factors  would  have  the  chance 
of  inheriting  that  common  characteristic,  and  even  of  adding- 
to  it.  It  would  still  require  this  multiple  or  product  to  seek 
in  its  species  another  individual  which  should  also  have 
accidentally  attained  the  same  character.     In  this  manner, 


:246  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  VIII. 

by  a  succession  of  similar  selections,  nature  could  do  what 
human  industry  does,  for  it  would  act  exactly  in  the  same 
way. 

But  who  does  not  see  that  I  employ  an  impossible  hypoth- 
esis ?  For  how  can  we  admit  that  an  animal  that  has  under- 
gone an  accidental  modification  (a  shade  more  or  less  in 
colour,  for  instance)  will  just  seek  to  discover  in  its  species 
another  individual  affected  at  the  same  time  by  the  same 
modification  ?  That  modification,  being  accidental  and  indi- 
vidual in  origin,  should  be  rare,  and,  consequently,  there  are 
very  few  chances  for  two  such  individuals  to  meet  and  to 
unite.  The  blind  desire  which  conducts  the  male  towards 
the  female  cannot  have  such  a  clairvoyance,  and  if  it  had, 
how  striking  a  testimony  for  finality  would  it  be !  And  sup- 
posing, what  is  so  unlikely,  that  such  a  rencounter  once  took 
place,  how  can  we  admit  it  to  be  renewed  in  the  second  gen- 
eration, then  in  the  third,  the  fourth,  and  so  on  ?  It  is  only 
on  this  condition  of  a  constant  rencounter  between  two  similar 
factors  that  the  variety  will  be  produced  and  fixed.  Other- 
wise, deviating  with  each  new  couple,  the  modifications  will 
have  no  constant  character,  and  the  type  of  the  species  will 
alone  remain  identical.  We  boast  of  the  short  time  needed 
by  human  industry  to  produce  a  new  variety;  and  it  is  said: 
What  cannot  nature  do,  that  has  ages  at  its  disposal  ?  It 
seems  to  me  that  in  this  case  time  does  not  matter.  The 
whole  knot  lies  in  the  multiplication  of  the  advantage  sought 
for,  a  multiplication  requiring  thought  to  choose. 

There  are  found  in  the  human  species  itself  examples  of 
varieties  produced  by  selection,  but  that  results  from  constant 
and  successive  unions  between  similar  subjects.  Thus  the 
Israelitish  type  is  easily  recognisable,  and  still  persists  since 
ancient  times,  notwithstanding  the  changes  of  the  medium; 
but  the  Israelites  marry  among  themselves,  and  preserve  in 
this  way  the  distinctive  traits  that  characterise  them.  Sup- 
pose m'.xed  marriages,  —  suppose  that,  prejudices  disappear- 
ing, the  Israelites  were  to  marry  with  the  rest  of  the  population 


THE  DOCTRINE   OF  EVOLUTION  :    LAMARCK   AND  DARWIN.       247 

—  how  long  would  the  Israelitish  type  last?  It  would  very 
soon  be  absorbed  and  transformed.  There  is,  near  Potsdam, 
M.  de  Quatrefages  tells  us,^  a  village  specially  remarkable  for 
the  size  of  the  inhabitants.  Whence  arises  this  specialty  ? 
It  arises,  we  are  told,  from  this,  that  the  father  of  Frederick 
the  Great,  who  liked  handsome  men,  chose  the  tallest  peasant 
women  he  could  find  as  wives  to  his  grenadiers.  This  is 
quite  artificial  selection,  let  us  not  forget.  Thus  Plato,  in  his 
Republic^  while  prescribing  marriage  by  lot,  yet  advised  the 
magistrates  to  cheat  a  little,  and  to  couple,  without  seeming 
to  do  so,  the  handsomest  women  and  men,  in  order  to  obtain 
vigorous  citizens.  It  is  evident  from  all  these  examples,  that 
selection  always  supposes  the  rencounter  of  a  common  char- 
acter in  the  two  sexes.  This  cannot  take  place  in  nature, 
that  entirely  accidental  character  being  first  of  all  very  rare, 
and  those  that  might  possess  it  at  the  same  time  having  no 
reason  to  meet  and  choose  each  other. 

I  know  that  Darwin  distinguishes  two  kinds  of  artificial 
selection  —  one  that  he  calls  methodical,  the  other  unconscious. 
Methodical  selection  is  that  of  the  breeder,  who  combines  his 
elements  as,  in  mechanics,  the  wheels  of  a  machine  are  com- 
bined. Unconscious  selection  is  that  by  which  the  ameliora- 
tion or  modification  of  a  species  is  obtained  without  that 
precise  result  having  been  sought,  —  like  that  of  a  hunter,  for 
instance,  who  makes  no  pretence  to  perfect  the  canine  race, 
but  who,  by  taste,  is  led  to  choose  the  best  dogs  he  can  pro- 
cure, and  obtains,  by  the  force  of  things,  an  accumulation  of 
qualities  in  that  breed.  Thus,  probably,  the  various  canine 
varieties  have  been  formed.  There  is  no  scientific  method 
here,  and  yet  the  result  is  the  same,  although  slower.  It  is 
the  same  in  nature,  according  to  Mr.  Darwin.  It  practises 
an  unconscious  selection,  and  the  agent  that  here  takes  the 
place  of  choice  is  the  struggle  for  life.  Those  most  favoured 
necessarily  prevail  by  right  of  the  strongest,  and  nature  is 
found  to  have  chosen  spontaneously,  and  without  knowing 

1  UniU  de  I'espece  humaine. 


248  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  Vlii. 

it,  the  subjects  best  furnished  to  resist  the  attacks  of  the 
medium  —  in  a  word,  the  most  appropriate. 

We  here  reach  the  core  of  the  system.  That  we  may  duly 
appreciate  it,  let  us  distinguish  two  different  cases ;  either 
the  surrounding  medium  does  or  does  not  change.  What 
will  happen  on  these  two  hypotheses  ?  We  must  here  not  ice 
a  great  difference  between  the  doctrine  of  Lamarck  and  tliat 
of  Darwin.  According  to  the  former,  while  the  medium  does 
not  change,  the  species  must  remain  unmoved,  once  it  is  by 
habit  adapted  to  that  medium  ;  having  in  effect  what  it  needs 
in  order  to  live,  we  do  not  see  why  it  should  try  to  change. 
But  if  the  cause  of  change  is  natural  selection,  it  should  be 
able  to  occur  even  in  a  fixed  medium ;  for  however  well 
adapted  a  species  may  be,  one  can  always  conceive  that  it 
might  be  more  so :  there  may  always  occur  some  accidents 
that  would  secure  to  certain  individuals  an  advantage  over 
others,  and  would  in  some  sort  afford  them  a  greater  oppor- 
tunity. And  thus  one  does  not  see  why,  on  this  hypothesis,, 
species  should  not  vary  before  our  eyes.  It  would  not  even 
need  for  this,  so  far  as  appears,  vast  periods  of  time,  when 
we  think  with  what  rapidity  human  industry  creates  new 
varieties. 

Why,  then,  do  not  we  see  such  modifications  produced? 
Because  the  principle  of  natural  selection,  even  united  to  the 
principle  of  the  struggle  for  life,  cannot,  as  it  seems,  have  the 
virtue  attributed  to  it  by  Mr.  Darwin.  Let  us  suppose,  in 
effect,  that  in  hot  countries  their  colour  is  an  advantage, 
rendering  the  inhabitants  better  fit  to  bear  the  heat  of  the 
climate.  Let  us  suppose  that  in  one  of  these  countries  there 
are  only  whites,  and  that,  at  a  given  moment,  an  individual  is 
found  accidentally  coloured  black ;  he  will  have  an  advantage 
over  his  compatriots,  —  he  will,  if  you  please,  live  longer.  But 
he  marries.  Whom  can  he  wed  ?  A  white  woman,  beyond 
dispute,  the  black  colour  here  being  accidental.  Will  the 
child  resulting  from  this  union  be  black  ?  No,  doubtless,  but 
a  mulatto ;  the  child  of  the  latter  will  be  of  a  still  lighter 


1 


THE  DOCTRINE   OF  EVOLUTION  :    LAMARCK   AND   DAllWIX.       249 

shade,  and  in  some  generations  the  accidental  tint  of  the  first 
will  have  disappeared,  and  been  swallowed  up  in  the  general 
characters  of  the  species.  Thus,  even  admitting  that  the  black 
colour  would  have  been  an  advantage,  it  would  never  have 
time  enough  to  perpetuate  itself  so  as  to  form  a  new  variety 
more  appropriate  to  the  climate,  and  which  would  thereby 
prevail  over  the  whites  in  the  struggle  for  life. 

If  doubts  be  entertained  of  the  value  of  the  argument  that 
I  here  propose  against  the  range  of  Mr.  Darwin's  principle, 
I  would  invoke  the  authority  of  another  naturalist,  M.  de 
Quatrefages,  although  very  favourable  to  that  principle.  He 
mentions  several  individuals  of  the  human  species  that  have 
been  found  accidentally  endued  with  exceptional  characters, 
and  he  wants  to  explain  why  these  individuals  have  not 
given  birth  to  new  varieties.  '  A  Lambert,'  says  this  natu- 
ralist, '  or  a  Colb'urn  (the  names  of  these  abnormal  individ- 
uals) has  formed  no  alliance  with  another  individual  ■presenting 
the  same  anomaly  as  himself.  Selection  here  tended  to  efface 
the  superabundant  and  teratological  activity  of  the  skin,  the 
excessive  number  of  the  fingers.  With  each  generation  the 
influence  of  the  primitive  normal  fact  would  forcibly  diminish 
by  the  mixture  of  the  normal  blood :  it  must  soon  end  by 
disappearing  altogether.'  ^  Afterwards  he  explains,  by  the 
absence  of  artificial  selection,  the  relative  uniformity  of  the 
human  groups  compared  with  the  domestic  animals.  Does 
it  not  follow  from  this,  that  natural  selection  is  insufficient 
to  vary  species,  for  this  main  reason,  on  which  I  have  so 
much  insisted  —  namely,  that  the  different  individuals  of  the 
two  sexes  accidentally  affected  by  the  same  character  could 
not  meet? 

An  analogous  objection  to  the  principle  of  natural  selection 
has  been  put  in  the  form  of  a  mathematical  argument  by  a 
learned  Englishman.^     He  takes,  for  example,  a  certain  cate 

1  UniU  de  I'especp.  hnmainc,  xiii.  (Hachette,  1861). 

'^  77ie  TJieori/  of  Natural  Selection  in  a  Mathematical  Point  of  Fie w,  by  Mr. 
Alfred  W.  Bennett,  1871.    (See  the  Revue  scientifique,  2d  series,  t.  i.  p.  100.) 


250  BOOK  I.    CHAPTER  VIII. 

gory  of  butterflies,  called  Leptalis,  whose  colour  is  protective, 
because  it  makes  them  like  other  butterflies,  called  Ithomia, 
which  the  birds  avoid  for  their  tainted  smell.  The  species  of 
Leptalis  which  is  found  to  have  an  accidental  resemblance  in 
colour  to  the  Ithomia  thus  gets  the  benefit  of  their  immunity 
Mr.  Wallace  attributes  this  advantage  gained  by  the  privi 
leged  Leptalis  to  natural  selection.  Mr.  Bennett  opposes 
him  with  very  close  reasoning. 

'  It  is  evident,'  says  the  latter  author,  '  that  to  pass  from 
their  ordinary  to  their  protective  form,  the  Leptalis  must  have 
undergone  a  series  of  gradual  transformations ;  and  we  can 
hardly  estimate  at  less  than  a  thousand  the  number  of  forms 
that  must  have  succeeded  between  the  first  deviation  and  the 
form  at  last  observed.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  clear  that  the 
first  degenerate  Leptalis  cannot  have  sufficiently  difi'ered  from 
their  sisters  to  deceive  the  appetite  of  the  birds  interested  in 
recognising  them  under  their  disguise,  and  it  is  a  moderate 
supposition  that,  during  the  first  fifth  part  of  the  period  of 
supposed  transformation,  the  birds  were  not  deceived.  If  so, 
the  butterflies  not  being  yet  preserved  by  their  new  dress, 
every  reason  of  selection  disappears,  and  we  must  regard  as 
entirely  left  to  chance  the  continuation  of  the  metamorphosis. 
The  chances  which  this  has  of  being  realized  can  then  be  very 
approximately  calculated.  Let  us  take,  in  efi'ect,  a  couple  of 
Leptalis^  and  suppose  that  the  species  had  a  tendency  to  var}^ 
in  twenty  different  directions,  of  which  only  one  tends  to 
approach  the  Ithomia.  In  the  first  generation,  the  chances  a 
favourable  variation  has  of  being  produced  are  represented 
by  the  fraction  2V  5  ^^^  even  this  valuation  is  very  favourable 
to  the  hypothesis  of  Mr.  Wallace,  for  among  the  numerous 
offspring  of  a  pair  of  butterflies,  there  would  certainly  be 
found  more  than  twenty  forms  very  little  different,  and 
deviating  from  a  determinate  form. 

'  In  the  second  generation,  the  forms  that  already  had  a 
tendency  to  remove  from  the  form  Ithomia  will  have  no 
reason  to  return  to  it ;  and  it  is  solely  in  the  twentieth  part 


THE  DOCTRINE   OF  EVOLUTION:    LAMARCK   AND   DARWIN.       251 

of  tlie  offspring  of  the  first  couple  that  we  can  reasonably  hope 
to  find  forms  more  or  less  approximating  to  the  protective 
form.  But,  in  this  twentieth,  selection  does  not  yet  act; 
chance  will  still  preside  over  the  production  of  the  form 
sought  for:  a  twentieth  only  will  assume  that  form.  But  this 
will  only  represent  the  twentieth  of  the  twentieth ;  thus  the 
chances  will  be  represented  by  the  fraction  -|^.  At  the  end 
of  ten  generations  the  chances  will  be  reduced  to  ^'^,  —  that 
is  to  say,  that  in  ten  billions  of  individuals  one  only  will  have 
preserved  the  marks  of  the  primitive  deviation.  This  is  an 
absolutely  negative  result,  and  compels  us  to  reject  the  hy- 
pothesis of  selection,  since,  before  even  the  latter  could  have 
had  any  reason  to  produce  it,  the  accidental  primitive  varia- 
tion would  have  completely  disappeared.'  ^ 

This  reasoning  does  not  mean  to  deny  the  principle  of  natu- 
ral selection,  but  to  limit  its  action.  It  suffices  us  to  prove 
here  that  it  does  not  suffice,  of  itself,  to  explain  the  origin 
of  organized  forms.  There  must  be,  besides,  an  internal 
principle  of  transformation ;  thereupon  the  idea  of  finality 
resumes  its  whole  empire.  This  is  granted  by  an  American  , 
naturalist.  Professor  Cope,  who  has  developed  the  hypothesis 
of  Darwin,  explaining  organic  evolution  by  a  growth-force, 
determined  to  propagate  itself  in  this  or  that  direction  by  the 
desire  or  imagination  of  the  animal.  '-Intelligence  is  the  origin 
of  the  best,  says  he,  '  while  natural  selection  is  the  tribunal 
to  which  are  submitted  the  results  obtained  by  the  growth- 
force.'  ^     This  hypothesis,  besides  being  a  return  to  that  of 

^  The  preceding  argument  is  much  stronger  still  when  it  is  applied,  no  longer 
to  an  advantageous,  but  to  a  disadvantageous  organ,  as  Broca  has  shown  in  a 
Discours  sur  le  transformisme  (Revue  des  co^as  scientijiques,  vii^  annee,  p.  555). 
I  ought  to  say  that  'SI.  Delboeuf  (Revue  scicntifique ,  13  January  1877)  has  com- 
bated this  argument,  as  well  as  that  of  Mr.  Bennett,  set  forth  above.  He 
starts  from  this  principle,  that  the  cause  that  has  produced  the  first  variation 
having  to  continue  to  act,  it  is  conformable  to  the  laws  of  the  calculation  of 
probabilities  that  its  influence  should  always  go  on  increasing.  But  that  cause 
having  been  at  first  accidental  (for  instance,  the  exceptional  temperature  of  the 
year),  there  is  no  reason  why  it  should  continue  its  action  during  the  whole 
series  of  ulterior  generations. 

•^  Revue  des  cuurs  scientijiques. 


252  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER   VIII. 

Lamarck,  grants  to  the  theory  of  finality  in  reality  much 
more  than  it  asks,  since  it  is  to  the  intelligence  of  the  animal 
that  the  principle  of  organization  and  fabrication  would  be 
definitely  reduced,  which,  at  bottom,  would  be  Stahl's  hypoth- 
esis. Without  pronouncing  on  this  hypothesis,  let  us  merely 
gather  this  additional  testimony  to  the  impotence  of  external 
and  accidental  causes  for  the  production  of  organic  forms. 

Yet  once  more,  we  do  not  in  any  way  dispute  the  principle 
of  natural  selection,  nor  that  of  the  struggle  for  life.  They  are 
two  very  true  laws,  established  by  experience,  but  which  ap- 
parently must  act  in  a  direction  entirely  different  from  what 
we  are  told,  and  much  more  in  the  direction  of  preserving  the 
species  than  in  that  of  modifying  it.  In  effect,  the  kind  of 
life  of  an  animal  depending  always  on  its  structure  (whether 
final  causes  be  admitted  or  not),  it  is  evident  that,  in  a  species, 
the  most  favoured  are  those  whose  organization  is  most  con- 
formed to  the  type  of  the  species.  In  the  carnivora,  for 
instance,  that  one  will  have  the  advantage  which  shall  have 
good  claws,  strong  teeth,  and  supple  and  vigorous  muscles. 
But  if  you  suppose  a  modification  intervening  which  could 
ultimately  be  an  advantage  in  other  conditions,  it  will, 
nevertheless,  at  its  origin  be  an  inconvenience,  by  altering 
the  type  of  the  species,  and  thereby  rendering  the  individual 
less  fit  for  the  kind  of  life  to  which  its  general  organization 
calls  it.  Suppose  that  in  a  herbivorous  animal  the  molar 
teeth,  so  fit  for  chewing  soft  grass,  were  accidentally  replaced 
in  some  individuals  by  incisors.  Although  the  incisor  is 
really  an  advantage  for  those  species  that  possess  it,  since 
it  permits  them  to  conjoin  two  kinds  of  food,  it  would, 
nevertheless,  be  a  very  great  disadvantage  for  the  animal  in 
which  it  should  accidentally  occur,  for  it  would  thereby  be 
less  able  to  find  its  habitual  food,  and  there  would  be  nothing 
in  it  prepared  to  accommodate  itself  to  another  species  of 
nourishment.^     I  conclude  that  natural  selection  must,  in  a 

1  M.  Cournot  thinks  with  us,  '  that  a  mechanical  choice  does  not  suffice  to 
explain  the  marvel  of  organic  adaptations.  ...  Of  what  use  to  the  elephant 


THE   DJCTRINE  OF  EVOLUTION:    LAMARCK  AND   DARWIN.       253 

medium  always  the  same,  result  in  maiutaiiiing  the  type 
of  the  species,  and  in  preventing  it  from  changing ;  I  cannot 
see  in  it,  except  accidentally,  a  principle  of  modification  and 
change. 

Is  it  so  when  the  medium  itself  is  changed,  when,  from 
whatever  causes,  the  external  conditions  come  to  be  different  ? 
It  is  then,  according  to  Darwin,  that  the  principle  of  natural 
selection  acts  in  an  all-powerful  manner.  If,  in  effect,  at  the 
moment  of  this  change  of  medium,  some  individuals  of  a 
species  are  found  to  have  certain  characteristics,  which  just 
render  them  fit  to  accommodate  themselves  to  that  medium, 
is  it  not  evident  that  they  will  have  a  great  advantage  over 
the  others,  and  that  they  alone  will  survive,  while  the  others 
will  perish  ?  By  the  operation  of  natural  selection,  an  at  first 
individual  character  may  thus  become  specific. 

Here,  evidently,  Mr.  Darwin's  hypothesis  appears  to  most 
advantage,  but  it  is  still  subject  to  very  great  difficulties. 
And,  first,  it  must  be  admitted  that  the  modification  in  ques- 
tion has  occurred  at  the  same  time  and  in  the  same  place 
among  several  individuals  of  different  sex.  In  efi'ect,  as  we 
have  shown,  if  it  is  not  at  the  same  time  in  both  sexes,  this 
quality,  far  from  accumulating  and  becoming  determinate  by 
heredity,  would  be  constantly  growing  weaker,  and  no  new 
species  could  be  formed.  Here,  then,  already  is  a  first  ren- 
counter or  coincidence  that  must  be  admitted.  In  the  second 
place,  it  must  be  supposed  that  each  animal  species  has  origi- 
nated in  the  coincidence  of  an  accidental  modification  with  a 
change  of  medium,  which  multiplies  without  end  the  number 
of  coincidences  and  accidents.  On  this  hypothesis,  while  a 
certain  series  of  causes  altered  organic  forms  according  to  par- 


for  "  the  struggle  for  life  "  would  be  a  nose  longer  than  that  of  its  comrades, 
though  much  shorter  than  was  needful  to  obtain  Its  food  ?'  —  Cournot,  Mat£- 
nalisme,  vitcdisme,  rationalisme,  p.  1G6.  The  same  author  concludes,  likewise, 
that  '  by  substituting  for  a  sudden  transformation,  a  slow  gradation,  the  me- 
chanical explanation  is  rendered  less  offensive,  and  its  grossness  is  in  some 
Bort  concealed,  although,  at  bottom,  there  still  is  sought,  from  a  mechanical 
•cause,  what  it  is  incapable  of  giving.'  —  Ihid.  p.  166. 


254  BOOK   I.   CHAPTER   VIII. 

ticular  laws,  another  series,  according  to  other  laws,  altered 
the  media.  The  adaptation  in  the  animals  would  only  be  the 
point  of  coincidence  between  these  two  series.  But  as  the 
appropriate  forms  in  the  organism  are  counted  by  thousands, 
or,  rather,  cannot  be  numbered,  we  must  admit  that  these 
two  series  of  parallel  causes  have  harmoniously  coincided  a 
thousand  times,  or,  rather,  an  infinite  number  of  times,  — 
that  is,  we  must  abandon  to  fortune,  not  to  say  to  chance,  the 
chief  part  in  the  development  and  progress  of  the  animal  scale. 
Is  this  a  truly  rational  explanation  ? 

One  of  the  gravest  difficulties  still  remains.  Cuvier  has 
greatly  dwelt,  in  his  zoological  philosophy,  on  the  law  of 
organic  correlations ;  and  although  there  may  be  a  difference 
as  to  the  extent  of  this  law,  it  remains  generally  true. 
According  to  it,  the  organs  are  bound  together  by  logical  re- 
lations, and  the  form  of  each  is  determined  by  that  of  the 
others  ;  whence  it  follows  that  certain  coincidences  of  organs 
are  impossible,  while  others  are  necessary.  Consequently,  if 
a  chief  organ  undergo  an  important  modification,  all  the  other 
essential  organs  must  be  modified  in  the  same  way  to  pre- 
serve equilibrium.  Otherwise  an  entirely  local  change,  how- 
ever advantageous  it  might  be  in  itself,  would  become  hurtful 
from  its  disagreement  with  the  rest  of  the  organization.  If, 
for  instance,  as  Lamarck  believed,  the  scales  of  fish  could  have 
been  transformed  into  birds'  wings  (which  Cuvier  declared 
absurd  in  an  anatomical  point  of  view),  the  sound  of  these 
same  fish  must,  at  the  same  time,  be  transformed  into  lungs, 
which  appears  to  Mr.  Darwin  the  most  striking  example  of 
his  theory.  Now,  without  discussing  the  reality  of  the  facts, 
I  say  that  these  two  correlative  and  parallel  transformations 
cannot  be  explained  by  a  simple  accident.  Mr.  Darwin  seems 
to  have  wished  to  anticipate  this  objection,  by  admitting  what 
he  calls  a  correlation  of  growth.  He  owns  that  there  are  con- 
nected and  sympathetic  variations,  that  there  are  organs  that 
vary  at  the  same  time  and  in  the  same  manner,  —  tlie  right 
and  left  sides  of  the  body,  the  limbs,  and  the  jaw ;  but  this^ 


rilE   DOCTRINE   OF   EVOLUTION  :    LAMARCK  AND   DARWLN         255- 

law  leaves  the  difficulty  unsolved.  Either  this  Ls  an  entirely 
mechanical  law,  that  only  indicates  simple  geometrical  rela- 
tions between  the  organs,  and  has  no  reference  to  the  preser- 
vation of  the  animal,  —  and  then  it  does  not  serve  to  solve  the 
problem,  —  or  else  these  correlations  of  growth  are  precisely 
those  required  by  the  change  of  medium,  or  of  external  con- 
ditions, and  then  how  can  they  be  understood  without  a  cer- 
tain finality  ?  By  what  singular  law  should  organs  that  can 
only  act  in  harmony  be  modified  at  the  same  time  and  in  the 
same  way,  except  there  were  here  some  foresight  of  nature  ? 
Here,  again,  the  simple  coincidence  does  not  suffice,  for  it  is 
the  coincidence  itself  that  must  be  explained. 

It  is  evident  that  the  theory  of  fortuitous  modifications,  with- 
out a  directive  principle,  presents  the  greatest  difficulties  when 
applied  to  the  formation  of  the  organs ;  ^  but  these  difficulties 
are  much  greater  still  as  regards  the  formation  of  the  instincts. 

It  is  well  known  what  Lamarck's  theory  was  on  this  point. 
Instinct,  according  to  him,  is  a  hereditary  habit.  Mr.  Darwin 
adopts  this  theory,  while  modifying  it  by  the  principle  of 
natural  selection.  He  remarks  that  the  same  thing  can  be 
said  of  the  instincts  as  of  the  organs.  Every  modification  in 
the  habits  of  a  species  may  be  advantageous,  quite  as  well  as 
a  modification  of  organs.  But  when  a  modification  of  instinct 
is  produced  in  a  species,  it  will  tend  to  perpetuate  itself,  and, 
if  advantageous,  will  secure  to  those  endued  with  it  the  pre- 
ponderance over  the  other  varieties  of  the  species,  so  as  to 
destroy  all  the  intermediate  varieties.  True,  it  cannot  be 
proved  by  direct  observation  that  instincts  have  been  modi- 
fied, but  some  indirect  observations  seem  to  warrant  this 
supposition,  —  such,  for  instance,  as  the  gradations  of  instinct.. 
Thus,  the  making  of  honey  by  bees  presents  three  distinct 
types,  but  connected  together  by  insensible  gradations.  First, 
the  humble  bees,  which  make  their  honey  and  wax  in  hollow 
trees ;  next,  our  domestic  bees,  which  have  solved  in  the- 
construction  of  their  cells  a  problem  of  the  higher  mathe- 

1  See  chap.  ii. 


256  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  YIU. 

iQatics ;  and,  lastly,  the  American  bees,  an  intermediate  spe- 
cies inferior  to  our  bees,  but  superior  to  the  humble  bees. 
Can  we  not  see  here  the  trace  and  indication  of  a  develop- 
ment of  instinct,  which,  starting  from  the  lowest  degree,  has 
gradually  reached  the  point  at  which  we  see  it  now  ?  What 
warrants  this  conjunction  is  that,  by  thwarting  the  industry 
of  bees,  by  placing  them  in  new  or  unfavourable  conditions, 
it  has  been  found  possible  to  vary  their  habits  and  change 
their  procedure.  Many  experiments  made  in  this  direction 
might  throw  great  light  on  this  obscure  question. 

The  theory  that  explains  instinct  by  hereditary  habit  is, 
beyond  doubt,  specious,  and  very  worthy  of  attention  ;  never- 
theless, it  still  presents  very  serious  difficulties.  First,  the 
variations  of  instincts,  which  may  be  observed  in  certain 
particular  circumstances,  would  not  necessarily  disprove  the 
existence  of  a  primitive  instinct  proper  to  each  species ;  for, 
even  on  this  hypothesis,  nature,  having  attached  an  instinct 
to  the  animal  for  its  preservation,  may  have  determined  that 
that  instinct  should  not  fail  just  when  the  least  change  might 
take  place  in  the  external  circumstances.  A  certain  degree 
of  flexibility  of  instinct  is  by  no  means  irreconcilable  with 
the  doctrine  of  irreducible  instinct.  For  instance,  nature, 
having  given  to  the  bird  the  instinct  to  construct  its  nest 
with  certain  materials,  was  not  bound  to  determine  that  if 
these  materials  were  to  fail  the  bird  should  make  no  nest. 
As  our  habits,  however  mechanical  they  may  be,  are  yet 
automatically  modified,  if  ever  so  small  an  external  circum- 
stance happen  to  oppose  them,  it  might  be  the  same  with  the 
instincts  or  natural  habits  imprinted  from  the  beginning  in 
the  very  organization  of  each  species  by  the  provident  Author 
■of  all  things. 

Another  grave  objection  may  be  raised  against  the  applica- 
tion of  the  principle  of  natural  selection  to  the  formation 
of  instincts.  According  to  Mr.  Darwin,  the  modification  of 
instinct,  which  was  at  first  accidental,  was  afterwards  trans- 
mitted  and  fixed  by  heredity.     But  what  is  an  accidental 


THE   DOCTRINE   OF   EVOLUTION  :    LAMARCK  ANL    DARWIN.       257 

modification  of  instinct?  It  is  a  fortuitous  action.  But  can 
a  fortuitous  action  be  transmitted  hereditarily  "^  Notice  the 
difference  that  there  is  between  a  modification  of  organ  and  of 
instinct.  The  first,  however  slight  and  superficial  it  may  be, 
—  were  it  the  colour  of  plumage,  —  is  permanent,  and  lasts  for 
life  ;  it  is  durably  impressed  on  the  organization,  and  one  can 
conceive  it  transmitted  by  heredity.  But  an  instinct  is  noth- 
ing else  than  a  series  of  given  acts  ;  a  modification  of  instinct 
is,  therefore,  a  particular  action  which  becomes  fortuitously 
intercalated  in  this  series.  How  can  we  believe  that  this 
action,  though  it  were  by  chance  several  times  repeated  dur- 
ing life,  could  be  reproduced  in  the  series  of  actions  of  the 
descendants?  We  see  fathers  transmit  to  their  sons  fully 
formed  habits  (although  imitation  and  similarity  of  media 
must  be  taken  into  account),  but  we  do  not  see  the  son 
reproduce  the  accidental  actions  of  the  father.  What  facts 
would  not  have  to  be  quoted  to  render  credible  so  strange  a 
hereditary  transmission ! 

If  it  were  doubted  that  Mr.  Darwin  assigns  a  great  enough 
part  to  chance  in  the  origin  of  the  instincts,  I  would  recall 
the  example  he  himself  mentions  —  namely,  the  instinct  of 
the  cuckoo.  It  is  known  that  the  female  of  this  bird  laj-s 
its  esfss  in  another  nest  than  its  own.  This  instinct,  which 
belongs  to  the  cuckoo  of  Europe,  is  not  found  in  that  of 
America.  Mr.  Darwin  conjectures  that  the  European  cuckoo 
may  formerly  have  had  the  same  habits  as  the  American. 
'  Suppose,'  says  he,  '  that  it  had  happened,  though  seldom,  to 
lay  its  eggs  in  the  nest  of  another  bird.  If  the  mother  or 
her  young  derived  from  this  circumstance  some  advantage, 
—  if  the  young  bird,  profiting  by  the  mistaken  instinct  of  an 
adoptive  mother,  became  more  vigorous, — it  may  be  con- 
ceived that  an  accidental  fact  became  a  habit  advantageous 
to  the  species,  for  all  analogy  invites  us  to  believe  that  the 
young  birds  thus  hatched  will  have  inherited  more  or  less 
the  deviation  of  instinct  which  led  their  mother  to  forsake 
them.     They  will  become  more  and  more  inclined  to  deposit 


258  BOOK  I.   CHAPTER  VIII. 

their  eggs  in  the  nests  of  other  birds.'  Here  is,  indeed,  an- 
accidental  and  fortuitous  action  considered  as  hereditarily- 
transmissible.  I  will  ask  zoologists  whether  they  allow  that 
the  power  of  heredity  could  go  so  far  ? 

A  great  number  of  facts  would  have  to  be  collected  and 
discussed  to  appreciate  at  its  true  worth  the  theory  of  hered- 
itary habits.  I  shall  only  mention  one,  which  appears  to  me 
absolutely  opposed  to  every  theory  of  this  kind  —  namely, 
the  instinct  of  the  necrophores.  These  animals  have  the 
habit,  when  they  have  laid  their  eggs,  of  seeking  the  bodies 
of  animals  to  lay  them  beside  their  eggs,  that  their  young, 
as  soon  as  hatched,  may  at  once  find  their  food ;  some  of 
them  even  lay  their  eggs  in  the  dead  bodies  themselves.  But 
what  is  here  incomprehensible  is,  that  the  mothers  that  have 
this  instinct  will  never  see  their  young,  and  have  not  them- 
selves  seen  their  mothers.  They  cannot,  therefore,  know  that 
these  eggs  will  become  animals  like  themselves,  nor,  conse- 
quently, foresee  their  needs.  In  other  insects,  the  pompiliay 
the  instinct  is  still  more  remarkable.  In  this  species  the 
mothers  have  a  kind  of  life  entirely  different  from  their 
young,  for  they  are  themselves  herbivorous,  and  their  larvae 
carnivorous.  They  cannot,  then,  conclude  from  their  own 
case  what  will  suit  their  offspring.  Shall  we  here  have 
recourse  to  hereditary  habit?  But  this  instinct  must  have 
been  perfect  from  the  beginning,  and  is  not  susceptible  of 
degrees :  a  species  that  had  not  had  this  instinct  precisely  as- 
it  is  would  not  have  existed,  since  the  young,  being  carnivor- 
ous, absolutely  need  animal  food  ready  for  them  when  they 
come  into  the  world.  If  it  be  said  that  the  larvae  were  origi- 
nally herbivorous,  and  that  by  chance,  and  without  an  end, 
the  mother,  attracted  perhaps  by  a  special  taste,  went  and  laid 
its  eggs  in  dead  bodies ;  that  the  young,  born  in  this  medium, 
became  by  degrees  accustomed  to  it,  and  from  herbivorous 
became  carnivorous ;  that  then  the  mother  herself  gave  up 
the  habit  of  laying  in  dead  bodies,  but  that  by  a  remnant  of 
association  of  ideas  she  continued  to  seek  those  bodies,  now 


THE   DOCTRINE   OF   EVOLUTION:    LAMARCK  AND   DARWIN.       259 

become  useless  for  herself,  and  to  place  them  near  her  eggs, 
and  all  that  without  aim,  —  we  multiply  so  fearfully  the 
number  of  fortunate  accidents  which  could  produce  such  a 
result,  that  it  would  seem  much  better  to  say  we  know  noth- 
ing about  it. 

It  is  very  important,  from  our  point  of  view,  to  establish 
that  transformism  is  susceptible  of  many  forms,  and  that  since 
Darwin,  very  different  systems  have  been  proposed,  without 
giving  up  the  common  general  idea.  But  the  more  one 
studies  these  systems,  the  clearer  is  the  proof  of  the  difficulty 
of  explaining  organic  forms  by  purely  mechanical  and  exter- 
nal causes.  I  will  mention,  for  instance,  polymorphism.  On 
the  hypothesis  of  Darwin,  species  are  produced  by  passing 
from  the  general  to  the  particular,  from  simpler  and  more 
abstract  to  richer  and  more  concrete  forms,  nearly  as  in  the 
philosophy  of  Hegel.  A  very  small  number  of  types  would 
thus  suffice  to  begin  with,  and  perhaps  only  one  to  engender, 
in  course  of  time,  all  the  living  species.  M.  Agassiz  has 
brought  a  very  serious  objection  against  this  system — namely, 
that  if  it  were  so,  in  proportion  as  we  descend  into  the  geologi- 
cal strata  and  reach  a  higher  antiquity,  we  should  meet  simpler 
forms  and  in  smaller  number.  But  it  is  found  to  be  quite  the 
■contrary,  and  that  the  farther  we  proceed  the  more  do  we  find 
different  and  complicated  forms.  This  objection,  strong 
against  Darwinism,  does  not  effect  transformism  in  itself. 
Other  naturalists,  in  effect,  admit  that  the  first  appearance  of 
life,  however  it  may  be  explained,  may  have  just  as  well  been 
manifested  in  thousands  of  different  forms  as  by  a  single  type. 
Some  go  so  far  as  to  think  that  originally  there  were  only 
individuals,  and  that  the  species  itself  is  the  product  of  time. 
However  that  may  be,  transformism  in  no  way  excludes  a 
plurality  of  types  at  the  first.  The  present  species  might  be 
produced  from  previous  but  different  species. 

It  is  evident  that  polymorphism  is  a  hypothesis  intermediate 
between  Darwinism  and  the  common  doctrine.     According 


260  BOOK   I.   CHAPTER  VIII. 

to  Darwinism,  all  organic  forms  are  definitely  produced  by 
external  causes,  and  derived  from  the  principle  of  natural 
selection.  According  to  polymorphism,  the  existing  species- 
have  been,  indeed,  produced  by  the  same  causes,  but  the 
primitive  species  owed  their  origin  immediately  to  the  creative 
forces  of  nature.  There  was  thus  a  moment  in  which  nature 
was  capable  of  producing  in  great  number  organic  types, 
although  it  no  longer  does  so  now.  But  these  organic  forms, 
however  different  they  were  from  those  of  the  present,  yet 
behoved  to  be  adapted  forms,  since  they  were  living.  Thus 
adaptation  was  not  the  effect  of  time  or  of  natural  selection: 
it  was  produced  at  the  very  first,  and  the  abyss  that  separates 
dead  matter  from  living  must  have  been  cleared  at  a  bound. 
The  impossibility  of  fortuitous  coincidences  producing  so- 
many  diverse  organizations  —  an  impossibility  which  Darwin- 
jpm  artfully  seeks  to  conceal  —  reappears  in  all  its  force. 

The  doctrine  of  evolution  rests  upon  a  principle  true  in 
itself,  and  which  Leibnitz  has  illustrated,  the  principle  of 
continuity  —  namely,  that  nothing  is  produced  that  does  not 
originate  in  a  previous  state,  nothing  that  is  not  connected 
with  the  past,  and  having  its  consequences  in  the  future- 
The  principle  is  incontestable,  but  like  every  abstract  principle, 
we  must  know  how  it  should  be  understood.  Is  the  transi- 
tion from  one  state  to  another  necessarily  and  always  slow" 
and  insensible  ?  Does  it  only  take  place  by  imperceptible 
degrees  ?  Does  not  every  one  know,  for  instance,  that  in  his 
own  life,  while  usually  facts  originate  from  each  other  by 
an  insensible  gradation,  one  grows  old  without  perceiving  it, 
ideas  and  sentiments  change  unconsciously?  On  the  other 
hand,  in  many  circumstances,  changes  are  rapid,  sudden,  prodi- 
gious :  one  grows  old  in  a  day ;  a  sudden  death  breaks  the 
charm  of  the  sweetest  life  ;  a  terrible  passion  originates  in  the 
twinkle  of  an  eye ;  in  human  society  there  are  insensible 
changes  and  violent  revolutions ;  in  history  we  cannot  suppress 
crises,  unexpected  falls,  prodigious  good  fortune.  There  are 
thus  two  sorts  of  continuity,  —  one  rapid,  the  other  slow  ;  tw'o- 


THE  DOCTRINE   OF  EVOLUTION:    LAMARCK   AND   DARWIN.       261 

sorts  of  change,  —  the  one  abrupt  and  sudden,  the  other  slow 
and  imperious.  Hence  this  question  arises :  How  are.  the 
transformations  produced  that  create  new  species?  Hence 
also  two  hypotheses  in  transformism,  —  that  of  slow  and  that 
of  abrupt  modification. 

A  learned  botanist,  M.  Naudin,  one  of  those  whom  Darwin 
himself  owns  as  one  of  his  precursors,  has  defended  the 
doctrine  of  abrupt  transformism  against  the  Darwinist 
hypothesis  of  infinitely  small  modifications,  accumulated  by 
time  and  fixed  by  heredity.  He  urges  two  reasons.  The 
first  is,  that  infinite  time  is  not  available,  as  the  Darwinists 
persuade  themselves.  'According  to  the  most  recent  calcula- 
tions,' says  M.  Naudin,  'the  maximum  duration  of  animal  life- 
upon  our  globe  can  be  approximately  estimated  at  about  fifty 
millions  of  years  at  the  very  most,  and  the  farther  progress 
of  science  will  never  raise  this  estimate,  but,  on  the  contrary, 
will  tend  to  restrict  it.'  Now,  fifty  millions  of  years  may 
seem  a  very  good  figure,  but  in  reality  it  is  absolutely 
insufficient  to  explain  the  production  of  all  the  organie 
forms  if  we  suppose  them  produced  by  insensible  modifica- 
tions. Not  millions  of  years,  but  thousands  of  millions  of 
ages  would  be  required.^ 

In  the  second  place,  the  theory  of  insensible  modifications 
is  entirely  contrary  to  experience.  What  experience  gives 
us  is,  in  fact,  abrupt,  not  slow  change.  The  study  of  botany 
proves  this ;  and  M.  Naudin,  who  has  so  thoroughly  studied 
the  variations  of  botanical  species,  is  here  a  weighty  authority. 
'  When  even  a  very  notable  change  is  produced,'  says  he,  '  it 
occurs  abruptly  in  the  interval  from  one  generation  to  another. 
The  fixation  of  varieties  may  have  required  time,  but  their 
appearance  has  alwaj^s  been  sudden.'     According  to  this  new 

1  If  we  consider  that  iu  certain  parts  of  the  American  continent,  formed  by 
the  accumulated  shells  of  polyps,  we  can,  according  to  Agassiz,  go  back  200,000* 
years,  we  perceive  we  can  thus  reach  the  250th  part  of  the  total  duration  of 
animal  life  in  the  globe;  but  if,  at  this  depth  of  antiquitj',  not  even  the  shadow 
of  a  variation  has  been  detected,  how  can  we  believe  that  250  times  more  time- 
could  have  sufiSced  to  traverse  the  interval  separating  the  primitive  cell  from" 
humanity  ? 


262  BOOK  I.   CHAPTER  VIII. 

form  of  transformism,  the  variation  would  take  place  in  the 
germ  itself,  or  during  the  period  of  incubation,  and  the  exter- 
nal circumstances  so  often  appealed  to,  the  climate,  medium, 
.and  habits,  would  only  have  very  little  importance.  '  When 
the  species  vary,'  says  M.  Naudin,  '  they  do  so  in  virtue  of 
an  intrinsic  and  innate  property/,  which  is  only  a  remains  of  the 
primordial  plasticity ;  and  the  external  conditions  only  act 
by  determining  the  rupture  of  equilibrium  that  permits  this 
plasticity  to  produce  its  effects.'  The  natural  selection  of 
Darwin,  on  this  hypothesis,  plays  only  a  very  secondary  part. 
The  species  fall  of  themselves  when  they  have  exhausted  the 
quantity  of  plastic  force  that  they  contained,  as  they  originate 
in  virtue  of  that  same  force.  '  As  I  view  the  matter,'  says 
the  author,  '  the  feeble  perish  because  they  have  reached  the 
limit  of  their  strength,  and  they  would  perish  even  without 
the  competition  of  the  stronger.'  In  a  word,  M.  Naudin's 
point  of  view  (and  it  is  done  to  please  metaphysicians)  is  to 
substitute,  in  the  theory  of  evolution,  for  external,  accidental, 
and  purely  fortuitous  causes,  an  internal  plastic  force,  which, 
from  a  primordial  protoplasm,  'derives  the  great  families  of 
^organization,  then  the  secondary,  and,  descending  from  the 
general  to  the  particular,  all  the  forms  actually  existing, 
which  are  our  species,  breeds,  and  varieties.' 

This  doctrine,  if  true  (and  the  reasons  given  by  M.  Naudin 
.seem  to  us  of  great  force),  leaves  intact  the  whole  prodigy  of 
final  causes,  and  evidently  destroys  all  that  was  believed  to  be 
gained  by  Darwinism.  The  latter,  in  effect,  tried  to  explain 
the  organism  as  the  result  of  a  thousand  internal  or  external 
causes,  which  must  necessarily  produce  thousands  of  forms 
X)f  some  kind,  among  which  the  struggle  for  life  undertook  to 
make  a  choice.  Thus  the  part  of  chance  was  concealed,  and 
the  incalculable  number  of  fortunate  circumstances  that  had 
to  be  supposed  was  lost  in  the  immensity  of  time.  But  if 
the  passage  from  one  form  to  another  is  abrupt  and  sudden, 
the  problem  is  still  the  same,  and  evolution  furnishes  no  new 
outlet  to  escape  the  difficulty.     How  does  matter  spontane- 


IIIE   DOCTRINE   OF   EVOLUTION  :    LAMARCK  AND   DARWIN.       263 

■ously  and  blindly  find  such  marvellous  adaptations?  How 
does  it  realize  so  many  different  ideas?  How  does  it  pur- 
sue such  complicated  plans  and  combinations?  Is  not  the 
transition  from  one  form  to  another  a  true  creation  ? 

We  have  already  seen  in  Darwinism,  that  the  principle  of 
natural  selection  had  seemed  to  us  insufficient  without  the 
intervention  of  the  principle  of  finality.  Imagine  only  the 
number  of  fortunate  circumstances  that  must  be  accumulated 
to  produce,  I  do  not  say  the  human  organism,  but  merely 
a  fly's  foot ;  and  among  the  innumerable  mass  of  fortuitous 
accidents  to  which  it  would  be  subject,  how  could  the  organ- 
ised machine  resist  and  survive  if  it  had  not  in  itself  a 
plastic  and  esthetic  force,  which  makes  the  useful  form  pre- 
dominate over  those  that  are  injurious  and  embarrassing? 
But  if  slow  evolutionism  itself  has  need  of  finality,  abrupt 
evolutionism  still  more  imperiously  requires  it ;  for,  exclud- 
ing groping  and  long  experience,  it  can  only  explain  the  ap- 
pearance of  forms  by  an  internal  plasticity,  which  is  only, 
under  another  form,  '  the  principle  of  finality,  a  mysterious 
power,'  says  M.  Naudin,  '  indeterminate,  a  fatality  for  some, 
for  others  a  providential  will,  whose  incessant  action  on  liv- 
ing beings  determines  at  all  periods  of  the  world's  existence 
the  form,  volume,  and  duration  of  each  of  them,  by  reason 
ot  its  destiny  in  the  order  of  things  of  which  it  forms  a  part. 
It  is  this  power  that  harmonizes  each  member  with  the 
whole,  by  adapting  it  to  the  function  it  must  fulfil  in  the 
general  organism,  which  function  is  its  reason  of  being.'  ^ 

1  Revue  horticole,  1852,  p.  102.  The  preceding  analysis  of  M.  Naudin's  the- 
ory is  derived  from  his  Notes  o?i  Related  Species  and  the  Theory  of  Evolution 
(Revue  Scientifique,  6th  March  1875). 


CHAPTER    IX. 

THE  DOCTRINE  OF  EVOLUTION:  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

TN  Lamarck  and  Darwin,  the  doctrine  of  evolution  is  con- 
-^  fined  within  the  limits  of  zoology,  and  is  content  with 
presenting  to  us  a  hypothesis  on  the  origin  of  living  species. 
But  the  doctrine  of  evolution  can  take  a  general  form,  and 
embrace  the  phenomena  and  the  genesis  of  the  entire  uni- 
verse, as  well  the  mechanical  universe  as  the  universe  of  ani- 
mated beings.  Evolutionism  then  becomes  a  philosophic  and 
even  metaphysical  doctrine.  A  celebrated  English  philoso- 
pher has  given  it  this  form.  It  remains  then  that,  in  order  to 
give  a  full  account  of  the  hypothesis  of  evolution,  we  set  forth 
and  estimate  the  systematic  structure  of  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer. 

In  the  first  instance,  nothing  can  be  more  finalistic  than  Mr. 
H.  Spencer's  ideas  on  the  nature  of  life  and  organization ; 
for  he  reduces  the  idea  of  life  to  two  principal  characters : 
1st,  Internal  co-ordination ;  2d,  External  correspondence 
with  the  medium.  But  what  would  seem  more  teleological 
than  these  two  characters  ? 

'  Life,'  he  first  says,  '  is  a  co-ordination  of  actions  ;  whence 
it  follows  that  an  arrest  of  co-ordination  is  death,  and  that 
imperfect  co-ordination  is  disease.  Moreover,  this  definition 
harmonizes  with  our  ordinary  ideas  of  life  in  its  different 
gradations,  seeing  that  the  organisms  which  we  rank  as  low 
in  cheir  degree  of  life  are  those  which  display  but  little  co- 
ordination of  actions,  and  that  the  recognised  increase  in 
degree  of  life  corresponds  with  an  increase  in  the  extent  and 
complexity  of  co-ordination.'  ^ 

But  this   character  does   not   suffice ;   a  second  must  be 

1  Principles  of  Biology,  Part  i.  chap.  iv. 
264 


THE   DOCTRINE   OF  EVOLUTION:    HERBERT  SPENCER.        265 

added  —  namely,  correspondence  with  the  medium,  or  '  the 
continued  adjustment  of  internal  to  external  relations.  This 
is  what  is  seen  especially  in  the  embryo,  in  which,  from  be- 
ginning to  end,  there  is  a  gradual  and  continued  adjustment, 
all  the  phases  of  the  organism  in  process  of  formation  strictly 
corresponding  to  the  phases  of  the  medium.'  It  might,  indeed, 
be  said  that  in  chemical  phenomena  there  is  also  a  correspond- 
ence between  the  internal  changes  and  the  external  relations ; 
'  but  this  correlation  does  not,  in  the  abstract,  differ  from  the 
connection  between  the  motion  of  a  straw  and  the  motion  of 
the  wind  that  disturbs  it.  In  either  case  a  change  produces 
a  change,  and  there  it  ends.  The  alteration  undergone  by  the 
object  does  not  tend  to  induce  in  it  a  secondary  alteration 
that  anticipates  a  secondary  alteration  in  the  environment. 
But  in  every  living  body  there  are  alterations  of  this  nature, 
and  it  is  in  this  production  that  the  correspondence  consists. 
The  difference  may  be  best  expressed  by  symbols.  Let  A  be 
a  change  in  the  environment,  and  B  some  resulting  change 
in  an  inorganic  mass.  Then  A  having  produced  B,  the 
action  ceases.  Though  the  change  A  in  the  environment  is 
followed  by  some  consequent  change,  a,  in  it,  no  parallel 
sequence  in  the  inorganic  mass  simultaneously  generates  in  it 
some  change,  b,  that  has  reference  to  the  change  a.  But  if  we 
take  a  living  organism,  and  let  the  change  A  impress  on  it  some 
change  C,  then,  while  in  the  environment  A  is  occasioning  a, 
in  the  living  body  C  will  be  occasioning  c,  of  which  a  and  c 
will  show  a  certain  concord  in  time,  place,  or  intensity.'  ^ 

This  explanation  of  life  would  be  the  best  formula  that  we 
could  have  chosen  to  explain  the  very  essence  of  finality  ;  for 
it  indicates  that  there  is  not  only  a  simple  relation  between 

1  Principles  of  Biology,  Part  i.  chap.  v.  Still  these  forimilae  do  not  sufficiently 
explain  the  difference  of  the  two  cases,  for  it  might  be  said  that  in  chemical 
combinations,  as  well  as  in  the  organism,  a  change  in  the  medium  is  also  fol- 
lowed by  a  change  in  the  object.  For  instance,  if  oxygen  is  necessary  to  com- 
bustion, when  oxygen  disappears  or  is  less  abundant  combustion  ceases  or  is 
weakened.  There  would  thus  be  likewise  here  four  corresponding  terms:  —  1st, 
Iti  the  medium  A,  production  of  oxygen;  2d,  In  the  object  B,  combustion;  3d, 
In  the  medium  a,  diminution  of  oxygen;  4th,  In  the  object  b,  diminution  of 


266  BOOK   I.   CHAPTER   IX. 

A  and  (7,  but  a  proportion  which  can  be  expressed  thus :  — 
A  :  C :  :  a  :  c,  OT  conversely,  c  :  a  : :  O :  A.  That  is  to  say, 
that  if  such  a  relation  exists  between  two  states  A  and  C, 
the  first,  being  modified,  must  produce  in  the  second  an 
analogous  and  proportional  modification.  But  that  such  a 
correspondence  and  proportion  should  take  place  by  the  mere 
play  of  the  elements,  is,  as  it  has  seemed  to  us,  impossible. 

Let  us  translate  into  sensible  facts  the  preceding  abstrac- 
tions. In  order  that  combustion  may  occur,  there  must  be 
a  certain  relation  between  the  combustible  and  the  medium. 
Let  the  medium  change,  let  this  correspondence  cease  (for 
example,  let  there  no  longer  be  oxygen  enough  in  the  me- 
dium), and  combustion  ceases.  This  is  what  happens  when  a 
lamp  goes  out.  But  in  living  beings  it  is  not  so.  When  the 
medium  changes,  it  produces  a  change  in  the  organism,  often 
even  a  change  by  anticipation,  as  if  in  foresight  of  the 
change  of  the  medium,  and  this  renders  possible  the  continua- 
tion of  action.  Thus  the  embryos  of  viviparous  animals  are 
fed  in  the  mother's  womb  by  a  direct  communication  with  the 
mother;  but  this  communication  ceases  at  a  given  moment  — 
a  separation  takes  place  between  the  two  beings.  What  a  pro- 
digious revolution  !  Must  it  not  cause  death  ?  Not  at  all : 
in  the  new  medium  there  is  a  new  food  all  ready  in  the 
mother's  breasts.  It  is  evident  that  so  considerable  a  change 
in  the  medium  would  be  mortal  if  it  were  not  accompanied  at 
the  same  time  by  a  similar  change  in  the  embryo,  in  anticipa- 
tion and  foresight  thereof,  —  that  is  to  say,  a  prehensile  organ, 
the  lips,  endued  with  a  force  of  suction  perfectly  adapted  to 
the  future  act  on  which  the  preservation  of  the  j'oung  depends. 
I  repeat  it :  this  correspondence  of  four  terms,  instanced  with 

combustion.  So,  if  for  oxygen  another  agent  be  substituted,  another  combina- 
tion will  succeed  the  preceding  combination.  Thus  the  change  of  medium  will 
then  likewise  have  its  correspondence  in  the  object.  To  prove  the  difference 
between  the  two  cases,  the  inorganic  and  the  living,  it  must  be  added  that  in  the 
former  case  the  change  will  be  anij  change,  while  in  the  latter  the  change  is  prc' 
determined,  —  that  is,  commanded  in  the  interest  of  the  preservation  of  the  whole, 
—  as  if,  for  instance,  when  oxygen  disappears  in  the  medium,  the  object  found 
means  to  produce  it  spontaneously,  in  order  that  combustion  might  still  go  on. 


THE   DOCTRINE  OF   EVOLUTION  :    HERBERT  SPENCER.        267 

Ko  much  wisdom  by  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  as  the  characteristic 
trait  of  the  organism,  is  precisely  the  fact  we  have  employed 
to  prove  the  existence  of  finality.  How  should  such  propor- 
tions and  accommodations  be  the  result  of  mere  mechanism  ? 
How  could  the  blind  play  of  the  elements  at  this  point  simu- 
late art  and  invention  ? 

So,  then,  co-ordination  and  correspondence  are  the  two  con- 
stituent characters  of  life.  How  are  these  results  explained  ? 
By  laws  which,  like  the  results  themselves,  seem  to  have  every 
appearance  of  finality.  In  effect,  correspondence  is  explained 
by  the  law  of  adaptation^  and  co-ordination  by  the  law  of 
integration.  Or  rather,  adaptation  and  integration  are  only 
two  different  names  given  to  correspondence  and  co-ordina- 
tion ;  the  act  is  taken  in  place  of  the  result.  Adaptation  is 
the  act  by  which  life  acquires  and  preserves  the  correspond- 
ence necessary  to  its  duration,  and  integration  is  the  act  by 
which  life  co-ordinates  its  differential  elements.  To  sa}'-  that 
an  organ  is  endued  with  adaptation,  is  to  say  that  it  is  apt 
to  produce  in  itself  secondary  changes  corresponding  to  the 
changes  of  the  medium ;  and  to  say  that  an  organ  is  endued 
with  a  power  of  integration,  is  to  say  again  that  it  is  apt  to 
produce  a  greater  or  less  co-ordination,  in  proportion  as  ex- 
ternal or  internal  causes  produce  in  it  a  greater  or  less  num- 
ber of  differential  modifications.  But  what  are  these  two 
aptitudes  but  the  essential  and  characteristic  attributes  of 
that  fundamental  force  that  we  have  called  finality? 

For  all  this,  we  would  be  greatly  deceiving  ourselves, 
despite  the  appearance  of  the  formulae,  did  we  think  to  find 
in  Mr.  Spencer  anything  like  finality.  In  these  very  facts 
that  he  describes  so  justl}',  he  sees,  and  means  to  see,  only 
the  development  of  mechanical  forces,  the  corollaries  of  that 
fundamental  law,  the  conservation  of  force.  If  he  re- 
proaches Lamarck,  and  even  Darwin,  it  is  for  not  having 
completely  purged  science  of  all  finality,  internal  or  external, 
and  even  of  all  plastic  direction  (vis  formativa'),  the  last 
refuge  of  occult  qualities. 


268  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER   IX. 

'  In  whatever  way  it  is  formulated,  or  by  whatever  language 
it  is  obscured,  this  ascription  of  organic  evolution  to  some 
aptitude  naturally  possessed  by  organisms,  or  miraculously 
imposed  on  them,  is  unphilosophical.  It  is  one  of  those 
explanations  which  explains  nothing,  —  a  shaping  of  ignorance 
into  the  semblance  of  knowledge.  The  cause  assigned  is  not 
a  true  cause,  —  not  a  cause  assimilable  to  known  causes;  not 
a  cause  that  can  be  anywhere  shown  to  produce  analogous 
effects.  It  is  a  cause  unrepresentable  in  thought ;  one  of 
those  illegitimate,  symbolic  conceptions  which  cannot  by  any 
mental  process  be  elaborated  into  a  real  conception.  In 
brief,  this  assumption  of  a  persistent  formative  power,  inher- 
ent in  organisms,  and  making  them  unfold  into  higher 
forms,  is  an  assumption  no  more  tenable  than  the  assumption 
of  special  creations,  of  which,  indeed,  it  is  but  a  modifica- 
tion, differing  only  by  the  fusion  of  separate  unknown  pro- 
cesses into  a  continuous  unknown  process.'  ^ 

We  have  not  to  defend  against  Mr.  H.  Spencer  the  hypoth- 
esis of  an  unconscious  evolutionism,  for  we  have  ourselves 
opposed  it  in  this  work  (Book  ii.  chaps,  ii.  and  iii.) ;  but 
evolutionism  in  itself  in  no  way  excludes,  as  we  have  said,  an 
intelligent  cause  at  the  origin  of  things,  and  such  a  cause  is 
as  conceivable  by  the  mind  as  mere  mechanism.  The  whole 
question  is.  Which  of  these  causes  is  the  more  adequate  to 
the  effect?  Hitherto  it  has  seemed  to  us  that  mechanism 
was  an  inadequate  cause ;  let  us  see  whether  the  system  of 
Mr.  H.  Spencer  can  fill  the  gaps  we  have  mentioned.  We 
must  ascend  to  what  he  calls  first  principles. 

In  his  book  of  First  Principles,  of  which  we  can  only  give 
here  a  very  succinct  resume,  Mr.  H.  Spencer  establishes  two 
propositions,  as  representing  in  the  most  general  form  the  ten- 
dencies of  all  the  changes  in  the  universe :  1st,  Nature  tends 
to  proceed  from  the  homogeneous  to  the  heterogeneous ;  2d,  It 
likewise  tends  to  proceed  from  the  indefinite  to  the  definite. 
It  is  needless  to  add,  that  there  is  likewise  a  double  law  of 

1  Biology,  Part  iii.  chap.  viii. 


THE   DOCTRINE  OF  EVOLUTION  :    HERBERT  SPENCER.        2G9 

return  in  the  reverse  direction  —  namely,  the  tendency  beyond 
-a  certain  limit  to  return  from  the  heterogeneous  to  the  homo- 
geneuous,  and  from  the  definite  to  the  indefinite.  But  this 
second  aspect  of  things  (or  dissolution),  which,  with  the  first 
(integration),  composes  the  whole  fact  of  evolution,  does  not 
particularly  interest  us  here,  and  we  can  place  it  out  of  view. 

Let  us  briefly  explain  the  two  laws. 

I.  '  The  progress  from  the  simple  to  the  complex  across 
a  series  of  successive  differentiations,  is  shown  in  the  first 
changes  of  the  universe  to  which  the  reasoning  leads  us,  and 
in  all  the  first  changes  that  can  be  inductively  proved.  It  is 
shown  in  the  geological  and  meteorological  evolution  of  the 
earth,  and  in  that  of  each  of  the  organisms  that  people  its 
surface.  It  is  shown  in  the  evolution  of  humanity,  whether 
considered  in  the  civilised  individual  or  in  the  groups  of  the 
race.  It  is  shown  in  the  evolution  of  society  in  the  three- 
fold point  of  view  of  its  political,  religious,  and  economic 
institutions.  From  the  most  remote  past  to  the  novelties 
of  yesterday,  the  essential  feature  is  the  transformation  of  the 
homogeneous  into  the  heterogeneous.'  ^ 

Now,  what  are  the  laws  in  virtue  of  which  this  passage 
from  the  homogeneous  to  the  heterogeneous  is  made  ?  There 
are  two  fundamental  laws.  The  first  is  the  law  of  the  insta- 
bility of  the  homogeneous  ;  the  second,  the  law  of  the  multipli' 
cation  of  effects.     What  do  these  two  laws  consist  of? 

a.  'Homogeneity  is  a  condition  of  unstable  equilibrium.' 
In  effect,  '  in  a  homogeneous  aggregation  the  different  parts 
are  exposed  to  different  forces  in  species  or  in  intensity,  and 
consequently  they  are  differently  modified.  Because  there  is 
an  internal  and  external  side,  because  these  sides  are  not 
equally  near  adjoining  sources  of  action,  it  follows  that  they 
receive  influences  unequal  in  quality  and  quantity,  or  both 
together.  It  follows  also  that  different  changes  must  be 
effected  in  the  parts  that  are  differently  influenced.' ^  Such 
is  the  law  called  the  law  of  the  instability/  of  the  homogeneous. 

'  First  Principles,  Part  ii.  chap.  xvi.  -  Ibid.  cLap.  xx. 


270  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  IX. 

This  law  presents  great  enough  difficulties,  not  merely  as 
to  being  admitted,  but  even  for  being  understood ;  for  how 
can  there  be  in  a  primitive  whole  absolutely  homogeneous 
forces  different  in  species^  and  even  in  intensity  ?  How  can 
there  be  in  the  whole  an  internal  and  an  external  side  ? 
"What  is  the  external  side  of  the  universe?  —  and  how  can 
there  be  something  apart  from  it?  No  doubt,  if  the  matter 
is  merely  to  explain  the  origin  of  a  secondary  whole, — for 
instance,  our  planetary  world,  —  we  may  start  from  the  hy- 
pothesis of  a  nebula  that  will  have  an  internal  and  external 
side,  and  that  can  be  attracted  by  different  forces.  But  to 
warrant  such  a  hypothesis,  the  technical  considerations  of 
Laplace  will  always  have  more  weight  than  the  abstract 
speculations  of  philosophers.  What  is  meant  when  one  speaks 
of  first  principles  is,  not  the  origin  of  a  particular  whole,  but 
of  the  whole  in  general,  of  a  primordial  state,  supposed  to  be 
absolutely  homogeneous,  in  the  totality  of  things :  wherefore 
the  distribution  of  force  must  be  as  homogeneous  as  the  dis- 
tribution of  matter ;  whence  also  there  are  no  longer  forces 
different  in  species  and  intensity,  —  there  is  no  internal  or 
external  side  in  the  whole.  In  such  a  supposed  homogeneity 
at  the  beginning,  whence  would  change  arise  ?  If  there  is  an 
equilibrium  during  a  single  instant,  what  shall  disturb  it? 
The  primitive  homogeneity,  once  supposed  in  equilibrium,  will 
remaui  so  indefinitely,  —  at  least  till  an  external  motor  im- 
parts a  change  to  it,  and  we  then  revert  to  the  hypothesis  of 
the  first  motor ;  or,  at  least,  till  we  suppose  an  internal  prin- 
ciple of  development  impelling  the  homogeneous  to  diversity. 
But  this  principle  no  longer  has  anything  mechanical,  and 
is  not  deduced  from  the  laws  of  matter  and  force.  If, 
in  fine,  the  author  objects  to  this  hypothesis  of  an  abso- 
lutely primitive  state  as  inaccessible  to  our  speculations,  and 
if  he  has  only  meant  to  speak  of  secondary  wholes,  such 
as  the  solar  nebula,  the  protoplasm  of  living  beings,  the- 
seminal  germ,  etc.,  it  must  be  acknowledged  that  the  initial 
point   is    then   no  longer  the  homogeneous  but  the  hetero 


THE  DOCTRINE   OF   EVOLUTION  :    HERBERT  SPENCER.        271 

geneous,  since  to  explain  tl  e  instability  of  the  homogeneous 
he  is  always  obliged  to  have  recourse  to  'the  dissimilarity  of 
the  position  of  the  parts  in  relation  to  the  ambient  forces.' 
But  diversity  of  situation  is  just  a  sort  of  heterogeneity. 
If,  ill  fine,  we  are  told  that  the  question  is  not  to  lay  hold 
of  a  determinate  state,  but  only  of  a  tendency,  and  that 
everywhere  we  see  things  go  from  the  homogeneous  to  the 
heterogeneous,  and  then  return  in  the  opposite  direction,  we 
answer  that,  even  in  virtue  of  this  tendency,  we  are  warranted 
to  ascend  hypothetically,  and  at  the  very  least  ideally,  to 
the  most  homogeneous  homogeneity  possible,  which,  being 
supposed  to  be  so,  will  therefore  be  immutable.  We  must 
conclude  that  this  hypothesis  of  an  absolute  homogeneity 
implies  a  contradiction,  —  that,  however  high  we  ascend,  we- 
must  still  admit  the  existence  of  the  same  and  the  other^  as 
Plato  said  (to  avTo  and  to  hepov),  and  that,  consequently,  the 
heterogeneous  is  quite  as  much  a  principle  as  the  homogene- 
ous itself. 

h.  The  second  law  that  explains  the  transition  from  the 
homogeneous  to  the  heterogeneous  is  the  law  of  the  multipli- 
cation of  effects.  The  author  formulates  and  develops  it  as 
follows.  He  affirms  that  '  a  uniform  force,  falling  on  a  uni- 
form aggregate,  must  suffer  a  dispersion ;  and  that,  falling 
on  an  aggregate  composed  of  dissimilar  parts,  it  must  suffer 
a  dispersion  from  each  of  these  parts,  as  well  as  qualitative 
differentiations ;  that  the  more  dissimilar  these  parts,  the 
qualitative  differentiations  must  be  the  more  marked ;  that 
the  greater  the  number  of  parts,  the  greater  will  be  that  of  th& 
differentiations ;  that  the  secondary  forces  resulting  from  it 
must  undergo  new  modifications,  by  effecting  equivalent  trans- 
formations in  the  parts  modifying  them  ;  and  that  it  must  be 
the  same  with  the  forces  they  engender.  Thus,  these  two 
conclusions,  —  namely,  that  (1)  a  part  of  the  cause  of  the 
evolution  is  found  in  the  multiplication  of  the  effects;  and  (2) 
that  that  multiplication  increases  in  geometrical  progression 
in  proportion  as  heterogeneity  augments,  —  these  two  conclu- 


272  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  IX. 

sions,  I  say,  are  derived  from  the  fundamental  principle  the 
conservation  of  force.'  ^ 

Without  insisting  on  this  deduction,  which  would  oblige 
us  to  enter  too  deeply  into  the  analysis  of  a  system  that 
we  have  only  to  examine  from  our  own  point  of  view,  we 
will  say  that  the  law  of  multiplication  of  effects  is  so 
evident  in  experience,  that  it  would  be  useless  to  insist 
upon  it. 

II.  But  still  these  two  laws  (instability  of  the  homo- 
geneous, multiplication  of  effects)  only  explain  one  thing  — 
namely,  how  things  come  from  the  uniform  to  the  multiform, 
from  unity  to  pluralit3^  They  do  not  explain  the  second 
property  of  evolution  —  namely,  how  it  goes  from  the  indefi- 
nite to  the  definite.  '  We  have  not  yet  found  the  reason,'  he 
says,  'why  there  is  not  produced  a  vague  and  chaotic  hetero- 
geneity in  place  of  the  harmonious  heterogeneity  produced  in 
evolution.  We  have  still  to  discover  the  cause  of  the  integra- 
tion accompanying  differentiation.'  ^  Integration  is  the  distri- 
bution of  elements  in  coherent  and  definite  systems.  Now 
•one  can  understand  that  the  thing  should  advance  from 
the  same  to  the  other,  —  that  is,  in  differentiating  itself, — 
but  that  these  differences  themselves  form  determinate  and 
regular  wholes,  does  not  seem  to  result  from  the  law. 

The  solution  of  this  new  problem  is  in  the  law  of  segre- 
Ration. 

This  law  consists  in  this,  that '  if  any  aggregate,  composed 
of  dissimilar  units,  is  subjected  to  the  action  of  a  force 
exerted  indifferently  on  all  these  units,  they  separate  from 
each  other  and  form  smaller  aggregates,  each  composed  of 
units  similar  among  themselves  for  each  aggregate,  and  dis- 
similar from  those  of  the  others.'  ^  For  instance,  if  a  single 
gust  of  wind  has  just  struck  a  tree  in  autumn,  covered  both 
with  yellow  and  green  leaves,  the  dead  leaves  fall  to  the 
ground,  and  form  a  separate  group  from  that  of  the  green 
leaves  that  remain  attached  to  the  tree.     So  in  the  mineral 

1  F^i7'st  Principles,  chap.  xx.  2  ii,ici.  chap.  xxi.  ^  ll)id.  chap.  xxi. 


THE   DOCTRINE   OF  EVOLUTION:    HERBERT  SPENCER.        273 

subjected  to  the  action  of  fire,  the  iron  falls  to  the  bottom 
by  its  own  weight,  and  may  thus  be  separated  from  useless 
elements.  The  electric  attraction  separates  small  bodies  from 
great,  light  from  heavy.  Chemical  affinity,  acting  diversely 
on  the  various  elements  of  a  given  body,  permits  us  to  remove 
this  or  that  element  while  leaving  the  others.  There  thus 
takes  place  a  sort  of  choice  in  nature  (KpiVts),  in  virtue  of 
which  the  homoeomeries  (to  use  an  expression  of  Anaxagoras) 
tend  to  separate  from  the  chaotic  state,  or  rather  incessantly 
prevent  it  from  forming.  But  the  Noi)?  of  Anaxagoras  does 
not  interfere  in  the  operation. 

Such  are  the  general  principles  of  evolution.  These  funda- 
mental laws  have  to  be  applied  to  the  formation  of  organized 
beings.  We  will  suppose,  then,  in  virtue  of  these  laws,  that 
the  organized  world  began  as  a  homogeneous  mass,  a,  proto- 
plasma  apt  to  take  any  kind  of  form.  This  protoplasm,  in 
virtue  of  the  two  laws  just  mentioned  (namely,  the  instability 
of  the  homogeneous  and  the  multiplication  of  effects),  inces- 
santly passes  from  the  homogeneous  to  the  heterogeneous, 
whence  the  formation  of  varieties,  races,  and  species.  All 
animal  life  ramifies  by  a  progressive  differentiation,  just  as 
the  individual,  starting  from  the  indistinct  state  of  the  germ, 
determines  more  and  more  at  each  new  degree  of  its  develop- 
ment.    Embryology  is  the  image  of  zoological  history. 

This  passage  from  the  homogeneous  to  the  heterogeneous 
takes  place  under  subjection  to  an  infinite  number  of  internal 
or  external  causes,^  which,  acting  variously  on  the  unstable 
homogeneity,  tend  to  modify  it  in  all  directions,  and  thus  to 
produce  an  infinite  diversity.  The  mutability  of  species  is 
thus  only  an  application  of  the  fundamental  laws  of  nature. 

But  it  is  not  enough  to  explain  the  diversity  of  forms.  We 
must  still  explain  their  suitableness,  their  precise  and  deter- 
minate character,  their  adaptability  to  the  ambient  medium, 
their  internal  concordance,  etc.  Animal  life,  like  nature 
itself,  does  not  merely  proceed  from  the  homogeneous  to  the 

1  Biology,  Part  iii.  cbapa.  viii.  and  ix. 


274  BOOK  I.  CHAPTER  IX. 

heterogeneous :  it  goes  from  the  indefinite  to  the  definite ; 
it  tends  to  form  systems  more  and  more  coherent,  more  and 
more  integrate^  according  to  the  author's  language. 

This  effect  is  due  to  the  law  of  segregation,  which  is  called 
in  zoology  the  law  of  natural  selection.  Selection,  in  effect, 
plays  in  the  biological  order  the  same  part  as  segregation  iu 
the  mechanical.!  It  is  it  that  effects  the  choice  that  in  some 
sort  sets  apart  forms  suitable  and  in  harmony  with  the 
medium,  and  drops  the  others.  In  a  word,  segregation  in  tha 
organic  order  is  called  the  survival  of  the  fittest. 

We  ought  to  add  one  consideration  more  —  namely,  that 
according  to  the  first  principles^  the  general  law  of  evolution 

—  that  is,  of  the  progressive  distribution  of  matter  and  mo- 
tion —  tends  to  a  relatively  stable  state,  which  is  equilibrium^ 

—  not  to  an  absolute  equilibrium,  which  would  be  repose, 
but  to  an  equilihrium  movens  (for  example,  that  of  our  plane- 
tary system).  But  the  organic  world,  as  well  as  the  inor- 
ganic, equally  tends  to  equilibrium.  Only  here  the  equilibrium 
is  double,  for  the  system  of  the  organized  being  must  first  be 
in  equilibrium  with  itself,  and,  in  the  second  place,  in  equi- 
librium with  the  medium.  Plere  we  find,  again,  our  two  con- 
ditions of  life  —  namely,  correspondence  and  co-ordination. 
Now  this  double  equilibrium  is  obtained  in  two  ways,  either 
directly  or  indirectly.^  Direct  equilibrium  occurs  by  adapta- 
tion; indirect  equilibrium  by  selection.  The  former  case 
occurs  when  the  medium  directly  produces  upon  the  organism 
the  advantageous  change  that  is  required ;  the  latter  occurs 
when  inability  to  live  causes  the  less  fit  to  disappear,  and 
allows  only  those  to  subsist  that  are  in  harmony  with  th& 
medium. 

We  have  thus  summed  up  as  succinctly  and  clearly  as  pos- 
sible the  vast  system  of  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer.  Our  aim  is  not 
to  refute  it,  which  would  require  a  wider  discussion  than  we  can 
engage  in.    We  shall  only  inquire  whether,  allowing  the  whole 

1  Fii-Rt  Principles,  chap.  xxi.  ^  Jbid.  chap.  xxii. 

3  Bioloijij,  Part  iii.  chaps,  xi.  and  xii. 


i 


THE    UOCTUINE   OF   EVOLUTION  :    HERBERT   SPEXCER.        275 

.■system  to  stand,  it  is  possible  to  preserve  it  without  intro- 
ducing into  it  an  intellectual  element,  external  or  internal, 
conscious  or  unconscious,  rational  or  instinctive,  —  whether 
Tve  can  appeal  exclusively  to  the  double  principle  of  force 
.and  matter  to  obtain  the  formation  of  a  system  and  an  order 
in  things,  —  whether  there  must  not  be  something  else,  which 
may  be  called  with  Hegel  idea^  with  Schopenhauer  wilU  with 
Schelling  the  absolute,  with  Leibnitz  the  divine  wisdom,  but 
which  is  distinguishable  from  the  insensibility  of  matter. 
The  knot  of  the  question  always  is,  whether  the  law  of  segre- 
gation— thatistosay,  of  mechanical  choice  —  is  capable  of  pro- 
ducing a  work  of  art ;  for  whatever  be  the  cause  of  the  bird, 
the  dog,  or  of  man,  beyond  doubt  these  creations  present  them- 
selves to  our  eyes  with  all  the  characters  of  a  work  of  art. 

The  disproportion  between  the  cause  and  the  effect  seems 
-evident  to  us,  for  segregation,  as  has  been  seen,  has  no  other 
effect  than  to  separate  into  dissimilar  wholes  similar  parts, — 
that  is,  to  reform  with  heterogeneous  wholes  homogeneous 
-groups ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  organization  consists  in 
making  heterogeneous  elements  co-operate  in  a  common 
action.  The  very  idea  of  organization  thus  appears  irreducible 
to  the  law  of  segregation. 

It  is  said  that  natural  selection  is  itself  a  segregation  ;  that 
it  separates  the  strong  from  the  weak ;  that  it  lets  drop  the 
impotent  to  preserve  the  fittest;  that  it  thus  assembles  all 
those  that  have  a  common  character,  a  determinate  aptitude, 
to  set  them  apart  (segregare^.  But  this  conciliation  between 
selection  and  segregation  appears  to  us  arbitrary  and  quite 
external.  In  the  mechanical  order  it  is  segregation  that  forms 
groups,  while  in  the  biological  order  selection  does  nothing 
but  preserve  groups  already  formed.  In  fact,  before  selection 
can  take  place,  the  fittest  must  already  be  in  existence.  There 
must  previously  have  been  a  formation  of  systems.  Selection 
does  r.othing  but  assure  the  preponderance  to  the  fittest,  but 
it  does  not  itself  produce  that  adaptation.  The  adaptation  is 
presupposed  ;  but  adaptation  here  constitutes  the  coherent  and 


276  BOOK   I.  CHAPTER  IX. 

definite  form  that  has  to  be  explained,  and,  therefore,  selection 
has  not  produced  that  form.  On  the  other  hand,  i]i  the  purely 
mechanical  order,  it  is  segregation  that,  in  a  heterogeneous 
whole,  separates  the  similar  elements,  to  form  of  them  new 
wholes.  There  is  thus  only  an  analogy  of  names  between 
selection  and  segregation^  and  a  profound  difference  of  natuie. 

Plow  should  segregation,  a  purely  mechanical  agent,  be  in 
a  position  to  solve  the  problem  of  correspondence  and  propor- 
tionality that  is  set  in  the  living  being,  and  that  Mr.  H. 
Spencer  has  himself  so  well  analyzed?  That  problem,  in 
effect,  amounts  to  this :  Such  a  state  of  the  medium  A  being 
fit  to  produce  in  the  organized  being  such  a  change  a,  how  is 
it  that,  to  a  new  state  of  the  medium  (7,  there  precisely  corre- 
sponds in  the  organism  the  change  c,  which  is  necessary 
for  the  organism  to  exist?  We  have  here  a  rule  of  three 
solved  by  nature.  How  should  such  a  success  be  rendered* 
possible  by  the  mere  fact  of  the  segregation  of  similar 
parts  ? 

Let  the  problem  be  well  understood.  As  regards  the  first 
relation,  that  existing  between  A  and  a,  nothing  is  required, 
for  we  can  understand  that  any  medium,  acting  on  any  mass, 
must  produce  a  certain  effect,  which  is  quite  undetermined 
beforehand ;  and  this  is  the  actual  effect.  But  this  first 
relation  once  established,  all  those  that  follow  are  determined 
by  the  first.  Any  change,  any  effect,  is  no  longer  sufficient, 
but  a  bespoken  and  predetermined  effect ;  for  it  must  be,  on 
the  one  hand,  in  agreement  with  the  organism,  and,  on  the 
other,  with  the  medium.  But  this  double  determination,  this 
double  correspondence,  cannot  be  explained  by  any  segrega- 
tion or  selection,  since  it  must  pre-exist  in  order  that  the 
selection  may  have  room  to  take  place. 

Let  us  explain  this  by  some  examples.  Let  a  mass  fit  to 
live  be  plunged  into  a  medium  at  once  nutritious  and  respir- 
able.  Let  this  medium  nourish  this  living  mass.  There  will 
here,  I  allow,  be  no  more  difficulty  than  in  the  action  of  fire 
on   a   mineral   mass.     But  let  circumstances  so  chancre  the 


THE   DOCTRINE   OF  EVOLUTION  :    HERBERT   SPENCER.        277 

medium,  that,  while  remaining  respirable,  it  is  no  longer  nu- 
tritive, and  let  the  nutritive  element  be  only  placed  at  some 
distance  from  the  living  being,  what  is  the  modification 
required  of  the  organism  to  become  fit  for  this  new  state  of 
things  ?  It  is  evident  that  henceforth  it  needs  motor  organs. 
But  how  should  it  suffice  for  the  production  of  these  organs 
that  the  need  of  them  should  make  itself  felt?  And  if  it 
were  so,  would  not  such  a  fact  prove  a  pre-established  har- 
mony, amply  sufficient  to  demonstrate  the  law  of  finality? 
It  must,  then,  be  admitted  that  such  organs  pre-exist,  —  that 
is  to  say,  that  some  causes  have  produced  them,  —  and  that, 
the  change  of  medium  supervening,  the  advantage  remained 
with  those  that  were  endued  with  them.  But  from  this  it  is 
evident  that  selection  has  created  nothing,  and  that  it  is  not 
the  veritable  cause,  for  the  organs  already  ihust  have  existed 
in  order  that  selection  might  adapt  them  to  the  medium- 
Let  us  continue  the  hypothesis.  Instead  of  abundant  food 
equally  disseminated  in  all  parts  of  the  medium,  or,  at  any 
rate,  at  some  distance,  let  us,  on  the  other  hand,  suppose  this 
food  thin  sown,  dispersed  at  wide  intervals ;  what  a  chance 
whether  even  an  animal  endued  with  motion  should  fall  in. 
with  it !  Something  more,  then,  is  necessary,  —  there  is  needed 
a  sense  that  can  traverse  space  and  direct  the  steps,  —  there 
must  be  sight.  But  here,  again,  the  same  reasoning  applies 
as  before.  How  are  we  to  believe  that  the  simple  need 
produces  the  organ  ?  And  if  it  produced  it,  what  a  proof  of 
finality  !  The  organ,  then,  must  have  pre-existed,  to  be  found 
ready  at  the  moment  when  the  change  of  the  medium  rendered 
it  necessary,  or  to  facilitate  to  the  animal  itself  the  change  of 
medium  ;  and  yet,  once  more,  it  is  not  selection  that  has  pro- 
duced the  organ,  —  that  is  to  say,  that  has  given  a  coherent 
and  definite  form  to  the  passage  from  the  homogeneous  tO' 
the  heterogeneous,  —  for  the  organ,  even  before  assuming  the 
superiority  to  the  fittest,  is  already  by  itself  a  coherent  and 
definite  form.  The  production  of  organs  by  the  action  of 
the  medium  (except  when  it  would  not  fall  under  any  of  the- 


278  BOOK  I.   CHAPTER  IX. 

above-mentioned  laws)  is  no  more  admissible,  for  only  the 
most  superficial  adaptations  can  thus  be  explained.  It  remains 
to  be  said  that  some  causes  have  produced  some  modifications 
in  the  primitive  homogeneous  mass,  and  that,  when  these 
modifications  have  been  found  agreeing  with  the  interest  of 
the  living  being,  these  forms  have  subsisted ;  which  amounts 
to  saying,  in  simple  and  clear  terms,  that  organic  forms  are 
the  product  of  chance.  Divergent  and  heterogeneous  causes 
producing  all  sorts  of  actions  in  the  medium  and  in  the  living 
being,  each  fortunate  coincidence  constitutes  a  new  organ 
or  a  new  species.  This  point  of  view  differs  little  from 
that  of  the  ancient  Atomists,  as  Aristotle  summed  it  up  :  o-oj? 

Having  examined  the  agreement  of  the  living  being  with 
its  medium,  or  correspondence^  let  us  now  consider  the  internal 
agreement  of  the  living  being  with  itself,  or  co-ordination. 

Here  the  difficulty  is  still  greater  than  before.  How,  in 
fact,  can  we  comprehend  co-ordination  being  produced  in  the 
very  proportion  to  the  differentiation  of  the  parts  ?  We  admit, 
in  effect,  that  the  primitive  homogeneity  incessantly  tends  to 
differentiate,  and  that  its  various  parts  also  progressively 
reach  forms  and  functions  more  and  more  special ;  but  it 
does  not  follow  from  any  of  the  previous  laws  that  this  dif- 
ferentiation, caused  by  purely  mechanical  agents,  is  ruled  by 
the  principle  of  the  common  interest,  or  that  this  division  of 
labour  is  established  in  a  hierarchic  and  systematic  manner, 
and  not  blindly  and  like  a  chaos.  Will  it  be  said  that  —  if  the 
division  of  labour  did  not  take  this  systematic  form,  if  the 
diversity  did  not  end  in  compatible  organs  and  functions  — 
the  being  would  not  live,  and  that,  consequently,  the  only 
ones  that  could  live,  and  that  experience  gives  to  know,  are 
those  in  which  this  compatibility  has  been  met  with?  Be  it 
so ;  but  it  is  the  explanation  of  Epicurus,  and  Mr.  Spencer, 
with  all  his  formulas,  adds  nothing  to  it.  Besides,  we  will 
still  ask  how  and  why  such  a  compatibility  can  have  occurred, 
.since  it  might  well  have  been  that  there  were  no  living  beinga 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF   EVOLUTION:    HERBERT  SPENCER.        279 

at  all.    To  fiud  unity  in  diversity  is  to  do  a  work  of  in  v^eutiou 
How  has  nature  been  so  inventive  as  endlessly  to  produce 
types  compatible,  whether  with  themselves  or  with  the  cor- 
responding medium?     Of  this  we  here  find  no  explanation. 

No  writer  has  more  forcibly  shown  than  Mr.  H.  Spencer 
the  close  correlation  that  ought  to  exist  in  the  animal  between 
differentiation  and  integration,  —  that  is  to  say,  between  the 
ilivision  of  labour  and  the  concentration  or  co-ordination  of 
the  parts.     He  expresses  himself  on  this  subject  as  follows :  — 

'  If  a  hydra  is  cut  in  two,  the  nutritive  liquids  diffused 
through  its  substance  cannot  escape  rapidly,  since  there  are 
no  open  channels  for  them,  and  hence  the  condition  of  the 
parts  at  a  distance  from  the  cut  is  but  little  affected.  But 
where,  as  in  the  more  differentiated  animals,  the  nutritive 
liquid  is  contained  in  vessels  that  have  continuous  communica- 
tions, cutting  the  body  in  two,  or  cutting  off  any  considerable 
portion  of  it,  is  followed  by  escape  of  the  liquid  from  these 
vessels  to  a  large  extent,  and  this  affects  the  nutrition  and 
efficiency  of  organs  remote  from  the  place  of  injury.  Then 
where,  as  in  further-developed  creatures,  there  exists  an 
apparatus  for  propelling  the  blood  through  these  ramifying 
channels,  injury  of  a  single  one  will  cause  a  loss  of  blood 
that  quickly  prostrates  the  entire  organism.  Hence  the  rise 
of  a  completely  differentiated  vascular  system  is  the  rise  of 
a  system  which  integrates  all  members  of  the  body,  by  making 
each  dependent  on  the  integrity  of  the  vascular  system,  and, 
therefore,  on  the  integrity  of  each  member  through  which  it 
ramifies.  In  another  mode,  too,  the  establishment  of  a  dis- 
tributing apparatus  produces  a  physiological  union  that  is 
great  in  proportion  as  this  distributing  apparatus  is  efficient. 
As  fast  as  it  assumes  a  function  unlike  the  rest,  each  part  of 
an  animal  modifies  the  blood  in  a  way  more  or  less  unlike 
the  rest,  both  by  the  materials  it  abstracts  and  by  the  prod- 
ucts it  adds  ;  and  hence,  the  more  differentiated  the  vascular 
system  becomes,  the  more  does  it  integrate  all  parts,  by 
making  each  of  them  feel  the  qualitative  modification  of  the 


280  BOOK  I.   CHAPTER  IX. 

blood  which  every  other  has  produced.  This  is  simply  and 
conspicuously  exemplified  by  the  lungs.  In  the  absence  of 
a  vascular  system,  or  in  the  absence  of  one  that  is  well 
marked  off  from  the  imbedding  tissues,  the  nutritive  plasma, 
or  the  crude  blood,  gets  what  small  aeration  it  can  only  by 
coming  near  the  creature's  outer  surface,  or  those  inner 
surfaces  that  are  bathed  by  water ;  and  it  is  probably  more 
by  osmotic  exchange  than  in  any  other  way  that  the  oxy- 
genated plasma  slowly  permeates  the  tissues.  But  where 
there  have  been  formed  definite  channels  branching  through- 
out the  body,  —  and,  particularly,  where  there  exist  special- 
ized organs  for  pumping  the  blood  through  these  channels,  — 
it  manifestly  becomes  possible  for  the  aeration  to  be  carried 
on  in  one  part  peculiarly  modified  to  further  it,  while  all 
other  parts  have  the  aerated  blood  brought  to  them.  And 
how  greatly  the  differentiation  of  the  vascular  system  thus- 
becomes  a  means  of  integrating  the  various  organs,  is  shown 
by  the  fatal  result  that  follows  when  the  current  of  aerated 
blood  is  interrupted.'  ^ 

In  this  passage  Mr.  H.  Spencer  clearly  proves  that,  in  fact, 
the  diJBferentiation  of  parts  is  accompanied  by  a  greater  inte- 
gration ;  he  shows,  besides,  that  it  ought  to  be  so.  But  why 
is  it  so  ?  This  is  what  he  does  not  tell  us.  The  necessity  of 
which  he  speaks  is  only  ideal  and  intellectual,  not  physical. 
It  must  be  so,  if  there  must  be  living  beings  ;  but  that  such 
beings  are  necessary  is  in  no  way  evident.  The  connection 
between  integration  and  differentiation  is  a  connection  of 
finality,  not  of  consequence  and  mechanism. 

One  can  easily  be  convinced  of  it  by  comparing  mechanical 
with  organic  integration.  In  the  former  case,  integratioii 
takes  place  when,  in  a  whole  already  differentiated,  the  similar 
parts  separate  to  form  new  groups ;  but  organic  integration,  on 
the  other  hand,  is  the  reunion  of  heterogeneous  or  dissimilar 
elements  in  a  common  group,  —  that  is  to  say,  in  an  organism. 
The  problem  to  be  solved  is  to  explain  the  formation  of  a 

1  Biology,  Part  v.  chap.  ix.  pp.  368-370. 


THE   DOCTRINE   OF  EVOLUTION  :    HERBERT  SPENCER.        281 

unity  in  a  multitude  of  divergent  parts.  This  the  law  of 
segregation  in  no  way  explains.  Even  if  it  were  said  that  it 
is  by  segregation  that  the  dissimilar  parts  separate,  and  that 
the  similar  parts  are  drawn  together,  so  as  to  form  distinct 
organs,  there  would  still  remain  the  same  difficulty — namely, 
how  these  distinct  organs  co-operate  together.  Add  to  this, 
that  the  organ  itself  is  not  always  composed  of  similar  parts, 
and  that  it  is  often  itself  the  unity  and  harmony  of  a  mul- 
titude of  very  distinct  component  parts,  —  for  instance,  the 
eye.  In  fine,  the  grouping  of  similar  parts  into  different 
wholes  would  still  not  explain  the  structure  and  form  assumed 
by  these  wholes,  and  the  reciprocal  accommodation  of  these 
structures  and  forms. 

The  term  equilibrium  only  serves  to  mask  the  difficulty, 
without  resolving  it ;  for  the  equilibrium  here  in  question  is 
purely  ideal,  and  has  nothing  to  do  with  mechanical  equilib- 
rium, or  the  balancing  of  forces.  No  balancing  of  forces  can 
explain  how  it  is  that,  where  there  is  produced  an  organ  to 
separate  the  urea  from  the  blood,  and  another  to  separate  the 
bile  from  it,  there  should  be  produced  at  the  same  time  canals 
to  make  the  blood  communicate  with  both.  This  kind  of 
agreement  cannot  be  represented  nor  measured  b}'  any  mathe- 
matical formula.     There  is  here  a  relation  of  another  order. 

There  remains,  then,  to  explain  internal  co-ordination,  like 
external  correspondence,  the  law  of  natural  selection.  But 
this  law  is  only  negative,  and  not  positive ;  it  suppresses  the 
impotent,  but  produces  nothing  itself.  Adaj^tation  and  co- 
ordination must  already  exist  for  it  to  preserve  those  that 
are  endued  with  them.  Thus  we  always  come  back  to  the 
same  point,  that  any  agents  having  produced  any  modifica- 
tions on  living  matter,  only  such  of  these  modifications  can 
subsist  as  are  found  in  agreement  with  themselves  and  with 
the  medium.  Yet,  once  more,  it  is  the  fact  of  a  happy  coin- 
cidence, and  that  is  what  every  one  calls  chance.  All  Mr. 
H.  Spencer's  scientific  apparatus,  the  whole  mass  of  these 
examples  accumulated  to  satiety,  all  that  mechanical  and 


282  BOOK   I.   CHAPTER   IX. 

dynamical  terminology,  can  neither  mask  nor  relieve  this 
low  and  common  result,  the  only  one  that  can  be  disentan- 
gled from  these  diffuse  amplifications  —  namely,  that  organic 
forms  are  the  product  of  fortuitous  combinations  of  matter. 
And  no  other  hypothesis  is  possible,  when  every  internal  or 
external  directive  principle  is  rejected.  The  fortuitous  is 
the  veritable  artist,  the  seminal  agent  of  nature.  It  is  the 
deus  ahsconditus  :  its  name  is  not  mentioned,  but  it  is  hidden 
behind  the  scenes.  Lamarck,  at  least,  and  even  Darwin, 
sometimes  allowed  the  possibility  of  a  plastic  principle  which 
might  give  form  to  matter.  But  we  have  seen  that  Mr. 
Spencer  expressly  and  systematically  excludes  this  hypothe- 
sis. Now,  as  organic  co-ordinations  do  not  exist  jDotentially 
in  the  laws  of  force  and  motion,  they  can  only  result  from  a 
lucky  cast  of  the  elements.  Such  is  the  last  word  of  this 
system,  which,  notwithstanding  all  its  promises,  furnishes 
us  no  new  means  of  filling  the  abyss  that  separates  a  blind 
cause  from  an  ordered  effect. 

To  sum  up.  The  theory  of  evolution,  applied  to  organized 
forms,  may  have  two  meanings.  Either  it  expresses  nothing 
else  than  the  gradation  of  organic  beings,  rising  by  degrees  or 
intervals  from  less  to  more  perfect  forms,  —  and  in  this  sense 
the  theory,  which  is  that  of  Leibnitz  and  Bonnet,  contains 
nothing  opposed  to  the  doctrine  of  final  causes,  and  even,  on 
the  contrary,  naturally  appeals  to  it,  —  or  else  the  theory  of 
evolution  is  only  the  theory  of  fortuitous  combinations  under 
a  more  learned  form,  —  it  expresses  the  successive  gropings 
attempted  by  nature,  until  favourable  circumstances  brought 
about  such  a  throw  of  the  dice  as  is  called  an  organization 
made  to  live  ;  and  thus  understood,  the  doctrine  of  evolution 
falls  under  the  objections  which  such  an  hypothesis  has  at  all 
times  raised.  Transformism,  then,  under  whatever  form  it  is 
presented,  shakes  none  of  the  reasons  we  have  given  above 
in  favour  of  natural  finality ;  for,  on  the  one  hand,  it  is  not 
irreconcilable  with  it,  and,  on  the  other,  it  is  inexplicable 
without  it. 


THE   DOCTRINE  OF  EVOLUTION:    HERBERT  SPENCER.        283 

This  last  proof  finished,  we  can  regard  our  first  task  as 
accomplished,  which  was  to  establish  the  existence  of  a  law 
of  finality  in  nature.  What  now  is  the  first  cause  of  that 
law  ?  This  second  question,  much  more  arduous  than  even 
the  first,  will  be  the  object  of  the  second  part.  ^-^^ 


BOOK   SECOND. 


THE    FIRST   CAUSE   OF   FINALITY. 


BOOK  II. 


THE  FIRST  CAUSE  OF  FINALITY. 


IF  the  series  of  inductions  which  we  have  developed  in  the 
previous  book  be  admitted,  we  shall  be  brought  to  this 
conclusion,  that  there  are  ends  in  nature.  But  between  this 
proposition,  and  this  other  that  is  generally  deduced  from  it 
—  namely,  that  a  divine  understanding  has  co-ordinated  all 
towards  these  ends,  —  between  these  two  propositions,  I  say, 
there  is  still  a  long  enough  interval. 

What  have  we,  in  fact,  seen?  That  human  intelligence 
acts  for  ends  ;  that,  by  analogy,  it  must  be  admitted  that  the 
animals  act  for  ends,  not  only  in  their  so-called  intelligent, 
but  also  in  their  instinctive  actions  ;  that,  in  fine,  by  extension 
of  the  same  reasoning,  living  nature  must  be  considered  as 
also  acting  for  ends.  Thus  our  argument  would  signif}-  that 
living  nature  expresses,  in  its  rudimentary  form,  the  same 
property  that  is  manifested  under  its  most  salient  form  in 
human  intelligence  —  namely,  the  property  of  acting  for  ends, 
or  finality.  Finality,  then,  is  one  of  the  properties  of  nature  ; 
such  is  the  result  of  the  preceding  analysis.  But  how  should 
this  analysis  enable  us  to  emerge  from  nature  ?  how  enable  us 
to  pass  from  facts  to  the  cause  ?  The  force  of  our  argument 
lies  precisel}'  in  this,  that  we  do  not  change  the  genus,  but 
that  in  one  and  the  same  genus  —  namely,  nature  —  we  pursue 
the  same  fact  or  the  same  property  under  different  forms. 
But  if,  on  the  other  hand,  in  place  of  following  the  same 
order  whether  ascending  or  descending,  we  suddenly  pass 
from  nature  tt)  its  cause,  and  say  there  is  in  nature  such  a 
being  (itself  a  member  and  part  of  the  whole)  which  acts 
in  a  certain  manner,  therefore  the  first  cause  of  this  whole 

287 


28S 


BOOK  II. 


must  have  acted  in  the  same  manner,  —  if,  I  say,  we  reason 
thus,  and  this  is  what  is  generally  called  the  proof  of  God 
from  final  causes,  it  cannot  be  doubted  that  we  very  boldly 
and  rashly  draw  a  conclusion  which  is  certainly  not  contained 
in  the  premises. 

The  legitimate  and  natural  impatience  of  believing  souls, 
who  would  have  philosophy  to  guarantee  to  them  an  evidence 
from  reason  equal  to  the  evidence  of  feeling,  by  which  they 
are  convinced,  can  hardly  bear  the  application  to  such  prob- 
lems of  the  methods  of  trial,  approximation,  and  cross- 
questioning,  which  are  the  peculiar  features  of  the  scientific 
method.  It  is  hard  to  see  the  noblest  beliefs  of  humanity 
weigrhed  in  the  balance  of  a  subtle  dialectic.  Of  what  use  is 
philosophy,  we  are  asked,  but  to  obscure  what  is  clear,  and 
to  shake  what  it  defends  ?  It  has  been  thought  by  some  a 
sufficient  praise  of  such  spiritualist  philosophy  to  say :  It 
does  not  hinder  us  from  believing  in  God.  In  this  order  of 
ideas,  in  effect,  it  seems  that  demonstration  weakens  rathei 
than  proves,  affords  more  doubt  than  light,  and  teaches  us  to 
dispute  rather  than  to  decide. 

We  are  as  sensible  as  any  of  this  anxiety  and  trouble  ;  and 
the  fact  mentioned,  which  is  nothing  but  the  truth,  is  one  of 
the  proofs  of  the  feebleness  of  the  human  mind.  But  it  is 
also  precisely  part  of  the  greatness  of  the  human  mind  to 
learn  to  consider  vigorously  and  calmly  its  natural  condition, 
and  courageously  to  seek  to  remedy  it.  We  distinguish,  for 
our  part,  even  in  the  order  of  nature,  two  things,  faith  and 
science,  the  object  of  the  one  being  to  supplement  the  other. 
There  is  a  natural,  practical,  and  moral  faith  in  the  existence 
of  a  Deity,  which  no  demonstration  can  equal,  to  which  no 
reasoning  is  adequate.^  But  if  the  soul  needs  to  believe,  it 
also  needs  to  know ;  it  will  try  to  unfold  the  causes  of  things 


1  '  A  single  sigh  towards  tbe  future  and  the  better,'  it  is  admirably  said  by 
Hemsterhuys, '  is  a  more  than  geometrical  demonstration  of  the  Deity  '  (Aristae 
—  '  CEuvres  d' Hemsterhuys,'  ed.  1719,  vol.  ii.  p.  87.  — See,  on  the  curious 
philosophy  of  Hemsterhuys,  the  work  of  M.  Em.  Grucker,  Paris  1866). 


THE   FIRST  CAUSE   OF   FINALITY  289 

by  the  laws  of  reason ;  and  it  is  one  of  the  strongest  tempta- 
tions of  the  human  mind  to  equalize  its  knowledge  with  its 
faith,  fides  qucerens  intellectum.  Hence  the  necessity  of 
applying  the  abstract  and  discursive  methods  of  science  to 
what  it  would  seem  ought  only  to  be  an  object  of  love  and 
hope  ;  even  this,  as  it  seems,  has  something  disrespectful  in  it. 
The  demonstration,  even  were  it  as  affirmative  as  possible, 
is  itself  a  failure  of  respect,  for  it  calls  in  question  what  it 
is  sought  to  demonstrate.  An  Deus  sit?  says  St.  Thomas 
Aquinas  at  the  beginning  of  the  Summa ;  and,  faithful  to  the 
scholastic  method,  he  first  replies,  Dico  quod  non.  But  who 
guarantees  this  holy  theologian  that  he  will  retrieve  at  the 
end  of  his  argument  what  he  has  denied  at  the  beginning? 
If  he  is  sure  of  it  beforehand,  wh}^  does  he  make  a  show  of 
seeking  it  ?  Does  he  only  reason,  then,  for  form's  sake  ?  Let 
him  be  silent,  then  ;  let  him  pray,  let  him  preach,  but  let  him 
quit  this  two-edged  weapon,  which  must  not  be  played  with. 
But  this  is  an  impossibility.  No  believer  will  renounce 
the  temptation  to  demonstrate  what  he  believes ;  and  though 
he  wished  to  do  so,  he  would  soon  be  forced  to  it  by  attack. 
Hence  the  application  of  the  cold  methods  of  science  becomes 
necessary,  and  with  science  there  appears  all  the  difficulties 
inherent  in  the  employment  of  these  methods.  Hence  he 
who  employs  them  has  the  perfect  right  to  proportion  affirma- 
tions to  evidence,  according  to  the  rule  of  Descartes.  As  a 
philosopher,  I  am  bound  to  but  one  thing :  to  admit  as  true 
what  appears  to  me  evident,  nothing  more.  That  there  should 
be  a  very  great  difference  between  the  demonstrations  of 
science  and  the  instincts  of  faith,  is  self-evident ;  for  an 
adequate  demonstration  of  the  Deity,  of  His  existence  and 
essence,  would  imply  a  reason  adequate  thereto.  The  abso- 
lute reason  can  alone  know  the  absolute  Being  as  He  is.  If, 
then,  faith,  anticipating  this  impossible  knowledge,  gives  us 
moral  certainty,  science  can  only  give  a  relative  approximate 
knowledge,  subject  to  revision  in  another  state  of  knowledge, 
but  which  for  us  is  the  mode  of  representation  the  most  ade- 


290  BOOK  II. 

quate  to  which  we  could  attain.  "When  Bacon  said  that  we 
only  know  God  by  a  refracted  ray  {radio  refracto)^  this  ex- 
pression, admired  by  all,  just  means  that  the  idea  we  have  of 
Him  is  inadequate,  without,  however,  being  untrue,  —  as  the 
projection  of  a  circle  is  not  a  circle,  although  it  faithfully 
reproduces  all  its  parts. 

Let  us  return  to  the  question  stated  at  the  opening  of  this 
chapter  :  Is  the  existence  of  ends  in  nature  equivalent  to  the 
existence  of  a  supreme  cause,  external  to  nature,  and  pursuing 
these  ends  consciously  and  with  reflection  ?  The  demonstra- 
tion of  such  a  cause  is  what  is  called  in  the  schools  the  physico- 
theological  proof  of  the  existence  of  God. 

This  proof,  as  is  known,  has  been  reduced  to  a  syllogism,^ 
whose  major  is,  that  all  order,  or,  strictly  speaking,  all  adap- 
tation of  means  to  ends,  supposes  an  intelligence,  and  whose 
minor  is,  that  nature  presents  order,  and  an  adaptation  of 
means  to  ends. 

We  have  hitherto  confined  ourselves  to  the  analysis  and 
discussion  of  the  minor. 

There  still  remains  the  major  proposition  of  the  argument. 
Finality  being  a  law  of  nature,  what  is  the  first  cause  of  that 
law?  That  cause,  says  the  traditional  voice  of  the  schools, 
from  Socrates  to  Kant,  is  intelligence ;  therefore  there  is  a 
supreme  intelligent  cause.  Is  this  conclusion  legitimate? 
Such  will  be  the  object  of  the  second  part  of  this  treatise. 


CHAPTER   I. 

THE  PHYSICO-THEOLOGICAL  PROOF. 

XN  one  of  his  most  profound  comedies,  Molicre  makes  a  simple 
-*-  and  pious  valet  give  a  lesson  of  theodicy  to  a  sceptical  and 
railing  master.  He  makes  the  good  Sganarelle  speak  thus 
to  the  unbelieving  Don  Juan  :  '  I  have  not  studied  like  you, 
thank  God,  and  no  one  could  boast  of  having  ever  taught  me 
anything;  but  with  my  small  sense,  my  small  judgment,  1 
see  things  better  than  books,  and  understand  very  well  that 
this  world  that  we  see  is  not  a  mushroom  that  has  come  of 
itself  in  a  night.  I  would  ask  you,  Who  has  made  these 
trees,  these  rocks,  this  earth,  and  yonder  sky  above?  and 
"whether  all  that  has  made  itself?  .  .  .  Can  you  see  all  the 
inventions  of  which  the  human  machine  is  composed,  without 
admiring  the  way  in  which  it  is  arranged,  one  part  within 
another?  these  nerves,  bones,  veins,  arteries,  these  .  .  . 
these  lungs,  this  heart,  this  liver,  and  all  these  other  ingre- 
-dients  that  are  there,  and  that  .  .  .  My  reasoning  is  that 
there  is  something  wonderful  in  man,  whatever  3^ou  may  say, 
and  which  all  the  savants  cannot  explain.'  ^ 

Under  this  comic  and  simple  form,  Moliere  sets  forth  the 
most  striking  and  oldest  proof  of  the  existence  of  God,  that 
which  persuades  most  men,  and  which  philosophers  have  called 
the  proof  from  final  causes.  It  is  this  argument  that  Fenelon 
develops  so  amply  and  eloquently  in  his  treatise  on  the  Exist- 
ence of  God ;  that  Cicero  before  him  had  set  forth,  almost  in 
the  same  words,  in  his  De  JVatura  Deorum  ;  and  that  Socrates 
appears  to  have  first  employed  ;  and  which  Kant  himself,  even 
while  criticising  it,  never  mentions  without  respectful  sympathy. 

1  Lefestin  de  Pierre,  act  iii.  sc.  1. 

291 


292  BOOK  II.   CHAPTER  I. 

This  classical  and  traditional  proof  has  been  set  forth  a 
thousand  times  under  the  most  varied  and  sometimes  the 
most  piquant  forms.     Let  us  give  some  examples  of  them. 

The  illustrious  Kepler,  whose  soul  was  as  religious  as  his 
genius  was  powerful,  found  everywhere  material  for  philo- 
sophic or  scientific  reflections.  One  day,  when  he  had  long 
meditated  on  atoms  and  their  combinations,  he  was,  as  he 
himself  relates,  called  to  dinner  by  his  wife  Barbara,  who 
laid  a  salad  on  the  table.  'Dost  think,'  said  I  to  her,  'that 
if  from  the  creation  plates  of  tin,  leaves  of  lettuce,  grains  of 
salt,  drops  of  oil  and  vinegar,  and  fragments  of  hard-boiled 
eggs  were  floating  in  space  in  all  directions  and  without 
order,  chance  could  assemble  them  to-day  to  form  a  salad  ? ' 
'  Certainly  not  so  good  a  one,'  replied  my  fair  spouse,  '  nor 
so  well  seasoned  as  this.'  ^ 

A  Scottish  philosopher,  the  wise  Beattie,  formed  the  in- 
genious idea  of  putting  in  operation  the  proof  of  final  causes, 
to  inspire  his  young  child  with  faith  in  Providence.  This 
child  was  five  or  six  years  old,  and  was  beginning  to  read ; 
but  his  father  had  not  yet  sought  to  speak  to  him  of  God, 
thinking  that  he  was  not  of  an  age  to  understand  such  lessons. 
To  find  entrance  into  his  mind  for  this  great  idea  in  a  manner 
suitable  to  his  age,  he  thought  of  the  following  expedient. 
In  a  corner  of  a  little  garden,  without  telling  any  one  of  ths 
circumstance,  he  drew  with  his  finger  on  the  earth  the  three 
initial  letters  of  his  child's  name,'  and,  sowing  garden  cresses 
in  the  furrows,  covered  the  seed  and  smoothed  the  earth. 
'  Ten  days  after,'  he  tells  us,  '  the  child  came  running  to  me 
all  amazed,  and  told  me  that  his  name  had  grown  in  the 
garden.  I  smiled  at  these  words,  and  appeared  not  to  attach 
much  importance  to  what  he  had  said.  But  he  insisted  on 
taking  me  to  see  what  had  happened.  "  Yes,"  said  I,  on 
coming  to  the  place,  "I  see  well  enough  that  it  is  so;  but 
there  is  nothing  wonderful  in  this,  —  it  is  a  mere  accident," 
and  went  away.     But  he  followed  me,  and,  walking  beside 

1  Al.  Bertrand,  Les  fondateurs  de  Vastronomie  moderne,  p.  ]54. 


THE  PHYSICO-THEOLOGICAL  PROOF.  293 

me,  said  very  seriously :  "  That  cannot  be  an  accident.  Some 
one  must  have  prepared  the  seeds,  to  produce  this  result." 
Perhaps  these  were  not  his  very  words,  but  this  was  the  sub- 
stance of  his  thought.  "  You  think,  then,"  said  I  to  him,  "  that 
what  here  appears  as  regular  as  the  letters  of  your  name, 
cannot  be  the  product  of  chance  ?  "  "  Yes,"  said  he  firmly, 
"  I  think  so."  "  Well,  then,  look  at  yourself,  consider  your 
hands  and  fingers,  your  legs  and  feet,  and  all  your  members, 
and  do  not  the}'  seem  to  you  regular  in  their  appearance,  and 
useful  in  their  service  ?  Doubtless  they  do.  Can  they,  then, 
be  the  result  of  chance  ?  "  "  No,"  replied  he,  "  that  cannot 
be ;  some  one  must  have  made  me  them."  "  And  who  is 
that  some  one  ?  "  I  asked  him.  He  replied  that  he  did  not 
know.  I  then  made  known  to  him  the  name  of  the  great 
Being  who  made  all  the  world,  and  regarding  His  nature  I 
gave  him  all  the  instruction  that  could  be  adapted  to  his  age. 
The  lesson  struck  him  profoundly,  and  he  has  never  forgot- 
ten either  it  or  the  circumstance  that  was  the  occasion  of  it.' 
Let  us  now  pass  to  Baron  d'Holbach's  drawing-room,  to  a 
company  where  each  one  outvied  the  atheism  of  his  neigh- 
bour so  as  to  scandalize  Duclos  himself;  let  us  hear  Abb6 
Galiani,  the  witty  improvisatore,  so  fond  of  paradox  that  he 
did  not  fear  to  defend  God  against  his  friends  the  Encyclo- 
pedists. Here  is  the  scene,  as  reported  by  Abbe  Morellet : 
'  After  dinner  and  coffee  the  abbd  sits  down  in  an  arm  chair. 
his  legs  crossed  like  a  tailor,  as  was  his  custom,  and,  it  being 
warm,  he  takes  his  wig  in  one  hand,  and,  gesticulating  with 
the  other,  commences  nearly  as  follows :  "  I  will  suppose, 
gentlemen,  that  he  among  you  who  is  most  fully  convinced 
that  the  world  is  the  effect  of  chance,  playing  with  three  dice, 
I  do  not  say  in  a  gambling-house,  but  in  the  best  house  in 
Paris,  his  antagonist  throws  sixes  once,  twice,  thrice,  four 
times  —  in  a  word,  constantly.  However  short  the  duration 
of  the  game,  my  friend  Diderot,  thus  losing  his  money,  will 
unhesitatingly  say,  without  a  moment's  doubt,  '  The  dice  are 
loaded;    I    am    in   a  bad  house.'     What  then,  philosopher? 


294  BOOK  II.  CHAPTER  I. 

Because  ten  or  a  dozen  throws  of  the  dice  have  emero-ed 
from  the  box  so  as  to  make  you  lose  six  francs,  you  believe 
firmly  that  this  is  in  consequence  of  an  adroit  manoeuvre,  an 
artificial  combination,  a  well-planned  roguery ;  and,  seeing  in 
this  universe  so  prodigious  a  number  of  combinations,  thou- 
sands of  times  more  difficult  and  complicated,  more  sustained 
und  useful,  etc.,  you  do  not  suspect  that  the  dice  of  nature 
are  also  loaded,  and  that  there  is  above  a  great  rogue,  who 
takes  pleasure  in  catching  you."  ' 

It  were  useless  to  multiply  the  different  examples  whereby 
it  has  been  sought  to  bring  home  the  force  of  this  proof,  and 
which  are  all  of  the  same  mould.^  The  most  ancient  known 
form  is  that  of  throwing  the  twenty -four  letters  of  the  alpha- 
bet, which,  according  to  Cicero,  Fenelon,  and  so  many  others, 
could  not  produce  a  single  verse  of  the  Iliad?  In  a  word, 
the  stress  of  the  proof  is  that  chance  will  never  produce  a 
regulated  work. 

This  last  form  of  the  proof,  —  namely,  the  throwing  of  letters 
of  the  alphabet,  —  while  it  gives  it  the  most  striking  appear- 
ance, is  yet  at  the  same  time  the  very  thing  that  supplies  the 
objection.  We  know,  in  effect,  that  chance  is  not  impos- 
sibility. A  thing  may  only  happen  by  chance,  and  yet 
happen.  For  this  it  suffices  that  it  implies  no  contradiction. 
There  is  no  reason  why  the  figures  composing  the  date  of  the 
accession  of  Louis  xiv.  (1643),  that  of  his  personal  govern- 
ment (1661),  and  that  of  his  death  (1715),  should  always 
form  the  same  number  (14),  and  that  this  number  should  be 
precisely  that  of  his  rank  among  those  of  his  name  (Louis 
XIV.)  ;  and  yet,  however  improbable  these  coincidences,  they 
have  occurred,  and  no  one  will  seriously  suppose  that  Provi- 
dence amused  itself  with  this  kind  of  game,  like  a  philosopher 


1  One  may  quote,  however,  the  instance  given  by  Tillotson  in  one  of  his 
sermons  :  '  If  twenty  thousand  blind  men  were  to  set  out  from  different  places 
in  England  remote  from  each  other,  what  chance  would  there  be  that  they 
would  end  by  meeting,  all  arranged  in  a  row,  in  Salisbury  Plain  ? ' 

2  It  is  not  known  who  first  employed  this  argument.  Perhaps  the  germ  of 
it  may  be  found  in  a  passage  of  Aristotle,  Be,  Gen.  et  Corrupt,  i.  2. 


THE   rHYSICO-THEOLOGICAL   PROOF.  295 

who  should  bethink  himself  of  playing  the  juggler  for  recrea- 
tion. The  improbable  may  happen,  then,  —  only  it  happens 
very  seldom ;  and,  for  instance,  the  like  coincidences  would 
not  be  found  in  the  history  of  all  kings.  But  we  know  that, 
to  reach  a  given  combination,  the  more  frequent  the  throws 
the  more  probable  becomes  the  event.  We  know  that  mathe- 
matical calculation  can  determine  the  degree  of  probability 
01  each  event,  and  that  it  is  equal  to  a  fraction  whose  denomi- 
nator expresses  the  totality  of  the  chances,  and  the  numerator 
the  number  of  these  chances,  a  number  which  augments  with 
the  number  of  the  throws.  Starting  from  this  datum,  one 
€an  calculate  what  chance  there  would  be,  by  drawing  the 
letters  of  the  alphabet  one  after  the  other,  of  producing  the 
verse  of  the  Iliad.  If,  then,  we  threw  the  letters  the  given 
number  of  times,  the  production  of  the  verse  of  "the  Iliad 
would  not  only  be  possible,  but  certain.  This  is  evidently  a 
concession  that  must  be  made  to  the  opponents  of  the  argu- 
ment.i     They  will  not,  however,  have  gained  much  by  this ; 

1  M.  Charpentier  clearly  proves  this  in  his  ingenious  treatise  on  the  lof/ic  of 
probability,  already  qnoted  (p.  186).  But  he  himself  essays  to  prevail  over  the 
Epicurean  argument  by  one  of  his  own.  That  a  fortuitous  combination  should 
take  place  once,  he  says,  is  not  astonishing,  and  might  even  happen  very 
certainly  in  the  immensity  of  time;  but  that  that  combination  should  be  repro- 
duced a  second  and  third  time  in  succession,  and  even  an  infinite  number  of 
times,  is  what  the  calculation  of  probabilities  does  not  allow  ns  to  admit.  But 
the  world  exists  from  a  time,  if  not  infinite,  at  least  indefinite;  therefore  the 
combination  from  which  it  results  must  have  been  reproduced  continually,  and 
is  so  still  daily,  which  is  inadmissible.  Thus  what  opposes  the  Epicurean 
objection  would  not  be  the  existence  of  the  world,  but  its  duration.  —  Despite  the 
ingenuity  of  this  objection,  we  do  not  regard  it  as  decisive.  The  world,  in  fact, 
is  not  the  repetition  of  a  combination  which  recurs  several  times  by  different 
throws;  it  is  one  single  combination,  whose  peculiar  character  is  that,  once 
found,  it  lasts  just  because  it  has  in  itself  conditions  of  duration  and  stability. 
Given  in  effect  a  certain  coincidence  of  distances  and  masses  among  the  atoms, 
there  will  follow,  for  instance,  a  circular  motion  (that  of  the  stars),  which,  lu 
virtue  of  the  law  of  inertia,  will  last  eternally,  so  long  as  a  new  cause  does  not 
come  to  interrupt  it;  and  so  with  the  other  conditions  of  regularity  which  we 
verify  in  the  world.  True,  we  may  ask  whether  chance  is  capable  of  producing 
a  world  absolutely  stable.  But  is  the  world,  such  as  it  is,  absolutely  stable? 
We  do  not  know;  and  there  may  be  such  an  unknown  cause  as  will  one  day 
bring  about  its  dissolution  (for  instance,  the  Icuo  of  entropy  of  M.  Clausius;  see 
above,  p.  19()).  If  it  were  so,  the  world  would  have  an  end;  it  would  then 
be,  like  all  other  combinations,  unstable,  only  it  would  have  lasted  longer 
But  what  are  a  thousand  millions  of  years  to  infinitude? 


296  BOOK  II.  CHAPTER  I. 

for  to  make  these  throws  a  hand  and  an  intelligence  were 
necessary.  The  types  will  not  of  themselves  quit  their  cases 
to  play  at  this  game ;  once  fallen,  they  will  not  rise  to  begin 
again.  It  follows,  then,  that  the  event  in  question  is  so  im- 
probable as  to  be  practically  equivalent  to  an  impossibility. 
But  is  it  the  same  if  we  pass  from  this  particular  case  to  the 
most  general  case  possible  — namely,  to  that  of  atoms  endued 
with  motion,  and  which  have  moved  in  empty  space  from 
infinitude  ?  If  the  time  is  infinite,  the  number  of  throws  may 
be  infinite.  In  order,  then,  that  a  combination  be  produced, 
it  is  enough  that  it  be  possible.  But  the  combination  of  which 
tfte  actual  world  consists  is  possible,  since  it  is;  it  must, 
therefore,  infallibly  be  produced  one  day  or  other.  This  dif- 
ficulty is  very  old  :  the  Epicureans  knew  and  made  use  of  it. 
There  was  scarcely  need  to  know  the  calculus  of  probabilities 
to  discover  it ;  it  is  an  objection  suggested  by  mere  common 
sense.  Fenelon  sets  it  forth  in  these  terms :  '  The  atoms,  we 
are  told,  have  an  eternal  motion ;  their  fortuitous  concourse 
must  already  have  exhausted,  during  this  eternity,  infinite 
combinations.  By  infinite  is  meant  something  that  compre- 
hends all  without  exception.  Among  those  infinite  combi- 
nations of  atoms  which  have  already  successively  happened, 
there  must  necessarily  occur  all  those  that  are  possible.  The 
combination  of  atoms  that  forms  the  present  system  of  the 
world  must,  therefore,  be  one  of  the  combinations  the  atoms 
have  successively  had.  This  principle  being  stated,  need  we 
wonder  that  the  world  is  as  it  is?  It  must  have  taken  this 
precise  form  a  little  sooner  or  a  little  later.  We  find  our- 
selves in  this  system  now.' 

Fenelon  replies  to  this  objection  of  the  Epicureans  by 
denying  that  the  number  of  combinations  could  be  infinite, 
for,  as  he  says,  '  no  number  is  infinite.'  Given  a  number 
alleged  to  be  infinite,  I  can  always  subtract  a  unit  from  it ; 
then  it  will  become  finite.  But  if  it  is  finite  minus  a  unit,  it 
cannot  be  infinite  plus  a  unit,  otherwise  it  would  be  this  very 
unit  that  made  it  infinite.     But  a  unit  is  itself  something 


THE   PHYSICO-THEOLOGICAL  PROOF.  297 

finite.  Now  the  finite  added  to  the  finite  cannot  make  the 
infinite.  So  to  any  number  whatever  I  can  add  a  unit ; 
therefore  it  was  not  infinite  before  the  addition  of  that  unit. 
From  this  reasoning  it  follows  that  no  number  actually  real- 
ized can  be  infinite,  and  that,  consequently,  the  number  of 
combinations  of  atoms  cannot  be  infinite.  The  principle 
being  overthrown,  the  conclusion  falls  along  with  it. 

I  do  not  know  that  this  argument  of  F^nelon,  even  grant- 
ing its  principle,  —  namely,  that  no  number  could  be  infinite, 
—  I  do  not  know  that  this  argument  hits  the  mark,  and  am 
inclined  to  believe  that  it  would  rather  strengthen  the  Epi- 
curean objection.  In  fact,  the  strength  of  this  objection  is 
not  in  the  hypothesis  of  an  infinite  number  of  combinations, 
but  in  the  hypothesis  of  an  infinite  time  permitting  the  atoms 
to  take  all  possible  combinations.  But  tliis  combination  is 
possible,  since  it  is.  It  matters  little,  therefore,  whether  the 
possible  number  of  combinations  be  infinite  or  not ;  rather,  if 
the  number  be  finite,  there  is  more  chance  that  this  in  which 
we  are  should  happen  during  infinite  time.  Suppose,  in  short, 
that  there  were  only  a  thousand  combinations  possible  (that 
in  which  we  are  being  one  of  the  thousand,  which  is  proved 
by  the  fact  that  it  exists),  there  will  be  a  greater  chance  that 
this  combination  should  occur  than  if  there  were  a  million, 
a  thousand  millions,  an  infinitude  of  possible  combinations. 
The  more  you  multiply  the  number  of  possible  combinations, 
the  more  surprising  do  you  render  the  realization  of  the  actual 
one,  —  so  much  so,  that  even  with  infinite  time  we  question 
whether  such  a  combination  must  necessarily  happen,  which 
F^nelon  too  easily  grants.  To  suppose  the  world  to  pass 
successively  through  all  possible  combinations,  and  that  it 
passes  through  them  all  in  turn,  is  to  suppose  a  certain  order, 
a  certain  plan  in  the  course  of  the  combinations,  which  con- 
tradicts the  idea  of  chance.  It  is  clear  that  it  might  pass  very 
often  through  similar  combinations,  that  those  recurring  most 
frequently  will  be  the  easiest,  that  those  in  which  there  is  a 
very  complicated  combination  (were  they  strictly  possible) 


298 


BOOK  II.  CHAPTER  I. 


will  only  occur  with  great  difficulty,  and,  despite  infinite 
time,  have  an  infinite  chance  against  their  realization.  One 
can  bet,  then,  in  a  manner,  the  infinite  to  one  that  the  present 
combination  will  not  be  realized,  however  considerable  may 
be  the  series  of  ages. 

But  let  us  lay  aside  the  calculation  of  probabilities,  and  let 
us  touch  the  Epicurean  argument  at  the  really  sensitive  part. 
The  strength  of  this  argument  consists  in  supposing  that  the 
actual  combination  forms  part  of  the  series  of  possible  com- 
binations of  atoms.  It  is  possible,  we  are  told,  because  it  is. 
I  say  that  this  is  to  beg  the  question.  The  question,  in  short, 
is  whether  the  world  is  possible  without  an  intelligent  cause. 
Those  who  deny  it  maintain  that  one  of  the  elements  of  the 
combination  is  just  intelligence,  so  that  if  this  intellectual 
element  be  suppressed,  the  world  ceases  to  be  possible.  Is  it 
not  as  if  it  were  said :  This  picture  is  possible,  because  it  is  ; 
it  has,  therefore,  had  no  painter?  I  deny  it;  for  without  a 
painter  the  picture  is  not  possible.  Logical  possibility  and 
real  possibility  are  here  confounded.  What  implies  no  con- 
tradiction is  possible  logically.  But  a  given  combination  of 
colours  (for  instance,  a  given  picture)  implies  no  contradiction, 
since  it  is ;  it  is,  then,  logically  possible.  But  to  pass  from 
this  logical  to  the  real  possibility,  do  we  not  need  a  precise 
cause,  a  determinate  agent  ?  This  is  at  least  what  we  allege  ; 
and  it  is  to  resolve  the  question  by  the  question,  to  deny  the 
condition  that  is  the  object  of  the  debate,  by  affirming  a 
'priori  a  possibility  which  we  only  grant  upon  this  same 
condition. 

Besides,  it  is  still  a  question  whether  the  actual  world 
would  have  been  possible,  if  the  elements  of  which  it  is  com- 
posed had  not  been  chosen  and  prepared  precisely  that  the 
world  might  exist ;  so  that  if  we  suppose,  on  the  contrary, 
any  unprepared  elements,  tht  actual  combination  would 
become  impossible.  In  fact,  in  order  that  a  composed  and 
combined  work  may  be  effected,  indeterminate  materials, 
indifferent  to  any  form,  do  not  suffice ;  there  are  needed  par- 


THE   PHYSICO-THFOLOGICAL   PROOF.  299 

tieuliir  materials,  form,  and  arrangement.  To  make  a  table, 
for  instance,  pieces  of  wood  of  any  form  —  spheres,  cubes, 
pyramids,  or  any  other  solids,  more  or  less  regular  —  do  not 
suffice ;  wood  cut  into  planks  is  needed.  So  to  compose  a 
line  of  print,  little  pieces  of  copper  or  lead  do  not  suffice ; 
characters  —  that  is,  letters  —  are  required.  If  the  materials 
are  not  appropriate  to  the  thing  to  be  realized,  in  vain  will 
they  have  moved  during  infinite  time.  They  will  not  produce 
that  work  ;  for  them  it  is  outside  of  possible  combinations ;  it 
is  incompatible  with  their  essence.  Grains  of  gold  moving 
without  end  during  infinite  time  will  never  make  a  blade  of 
grass. 

I  say,  then,  that  to  render  the  present  world  possible,  the 
first  elements  of  which  it  is  composed  must  have  such  a  deter- 
minate essence  that  precisely  this  may  be  in  the  number  of 
possible  combinations  of  these  elements.  I  even  add,  that  to 
speak  of  other  possible  combinations  than  this  is  a  bad  expres- 
sion, for  all  that  results,  or  can  result,  from  the  essence  of  the 
elements,  forms  part  of  the  actual  combination.  By  universe., 
in  fact,  I  mean  the  whole  of  the  phenomena,  past,  present, 
and  future,  which  have  followed  from  the  first  throw  of  the 
elements.  There  has  never,  then,  been  more  than  one  com- 
bination ;  1  and  from  the  first  cast  the  present  world  was 
found  without  groping  and  without  throw  of  dice.  There 
has  onl}'  been  one  cast,  and  that  is  the  harmonious  and 
regular  world  of  which  we  see  but  one  moment  and  one  face, 
but  which  embraces  in  its  unity  all  the  faces  and  moments 
the  imagination  can  conceive.  To  imagine  another  world, 
other  combinations,  we  must  suppose,  if  possible,  other 
elements,  but  which  have  never  been  realized  and  never 
existed,  otherwise  the  present  world  would  itself  never  have 
existed,  since  it  is  only  compatible  with  some  elements  and 
not  with  others. 

1  This  assertion  in  no  way  contradicts  the  doctrine  of  free  will  ;  for  free  will 
is  not  exercised  at  the  expense  of  the  laws  of  nature,  and  cannot  change  the 
essential  conditions  of  the  actual  combination  :  it  only  shows  itself  in  the  very 
sphere  of  these  conditions. 


300  BOOK  II.   CHAPTER  I. 

Hence  it  follows  that  the  alleged  infinitude  of  combinations, 
from  which  all  at  once  the  present  world  resulted,  implies  a 
contradiction,  and  that  from  the  first  moment  it  was  already 
the  present  world  (not  the  phase  in  which  we  form  part,  but 
an  interior  phase  bound  to  this).  The  present  world  exists, 
then,  from  all  eternity  (if  it  exists  of  itself),  and  there  never 
have  been  others.  There  is  room  for  the  inquiry  how  such  a 
world,  so  regular  and  wise,  has  alone  succeeded  in  existing 
among  so  many  other  worlds  that  might  have  been ;  and  if 
it  be  said  that  no  other  than  this  could  exist  (which,  for  the 
rest,  we  do  not  know),  the  question  will  still  remain,  how  the 
only  possible  world  is  precisely  that  in  which  order,  harmony, 
and  reason  reign. 

Let  it  not,  meanwhile,  be  supposed  that  the  question  can 
be  resolved  by  applying  to  the  formation  of  worlds  the  Dar- 
winian principle  of  the  struggle  for  existence,  and  natural 
selection.  It  is  the  same  with  worlds,  it  might  be  said,  as 
with  living  species ;  the  best  organized  is  the  most  durable, 
and,  among  all  possible,  that  alone  has  endured  which  has 
been  found  possessed  of  conditions  of  stability.  The  com- 
parison is  quite  false.  A  species,  in  order  to  last  and  live, 
needs  to  be  adapted  to  a  medium.  That  will  be  the  most 
durable  in  which  most  adaptation  shall  occur ;  that  in  which 
none  at  all  is  found  will  only  last  a  moment,  or  even  will 
never  exist.  But  the  world  has  not  to  be  adapted  to  a 
medium,  since  it  is  itself  the  whole.  What  need  has  it  to  be 
organized,  harmonious,  and  regular  ?  And  why  should  it  not 
subsist  in  the  state  of  chaos  ?  For  the  totality  of  things,  the 
absence  of  order  and  regularity  is  not,  as  in  the  case  of  living 
species,  a  principle  of  destruction.  The  materials  being 
eternal  and  necessary,  what  matters  it  whether  they  be  in  one 
order  t)r  in  another,  or  even  though  they  have  no  order  at  all  ? 
They  will  exist  none  the  less.  Thus  a  chaos  has  not  less 
chance  of  existing  than  a  cosmos.  In  the  competition  of  the 
possibilities  of  being,  the  one  is  equal  to  the  other.  No 
doubt  Leibnitz  has  justly  said  that  in  this  competition  of 


THE    PHYSICO-THEOLOGICAL   PROOF.  301 

possibles,  perfection  is  the  cause  of  choice ;  but  this  is  pre 
cisely  because  he  occupies  the  point  of  view  of  the  final,  and 
not  of  the  material  cause.  From  a  purely  material  point  of 
view  all  the  possibles  are  equal,  and  selection  can  do  nothing 
in  it.  Hence  my  question  recurs :  How  is  the  only  world 
that  has  managed  to  exist  precisely  the  world  of  order  and 
harmony  ? 

Besides,  the  Epicurean  objection,  if  it  were  accepted,  would 
go  much  farther  than  is  imagined.  If  all  is  the  product  of 
chance,  it  must  be  admitted  that  not  only  the  intentional 
order  of  nature,  but  even  physical  and  mathematical  order, 
is  purely  fortuitous  and  contingent ;  for,  once  upon  this  path, 
why  should  it  not  be  supposed  that  it  is  chance  that  produces 
an  apparent  constancy  in  the  laws  of  nature,  like,  for  exam- 
ple, the  constancy  of  chance  in  the  case  of  a  lucky  gambler? 
There  are  no  laws,  it  will  be  said,  but  simple  coincidences 
which  hitherto  have  been  more  frequent  than  others.  The 
•order  of  things  would  then  have  no  more  value  than  their 
goodness,  and  science  would  be  as  arbitrary  as  esthetics.  But 
no  one  goes  so  far.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  in  the  name  of 
science  and  of  the  laws  of  nature  that  finality  is  opposed ; 
but  if  it  is  not  believed  that  chance  can  produce  laws  that 
have  full  mathematical  rigour,  why  should  it  be  admitted 
that  it  can  produce  the  appearance  of  order  and  wisdom  ? 

But  let  us  not  insist  on  an  argument  now  antiquated,  and 
which  no  one  really  any  longer  maintains,  which,  besides, 
taken  strictly,  would  carry  us  much  farther  than  any  one 
wants  to  go.  From  the  point  where  the  discussion  was  in 
the  days  of  F^nelon,  let  us  come  to  the  point  where  it  is  at 
present,  —  that  is,  the  point  to  which  it  has  been  brought  by 
the  criticism  of  David  Hume,  Kant,  and  Hegel. 

Kant  reduces  the  physico-theological  proof  to  the  different 
points  that  follow :  —  1st,  There  are  everywhere  in  the  world 
manifest  signs  of  an  order  regulated  by  design ;  2d,  This 
harmonious  order  is  not  inherent  in  the  things  of  the  world, 
it   only  belongs   to   them    contingently ;    3d,   There    exists, 


302 


BOOK  II.  CHAPTER  I. 


therefore,  one  sublime  wise  cause  (or  more),  which  must 
have  produced  the  world  not  only  as  an  omnipotent  nature 
acting  blindly  by  its  fecundity,  but  as  an  intelligence  by  its 
liberty ;  4th,  The  unity  of  this  cause  is  deducible  from  that 
of  the  mutual  relations  of  the  parts  of  the  world  viewed  as 
the  different  pieces  of  a  work  of  art. 

Kant  begins  by  mentioning  and  setting  aside  one  of  the 
chief  difficulties,  which  he  himself,  however,  seems  to  consider 
a  cavil  here,  but  which,  in  the  Critique  of  the  Judgment,  and 
in  the  later  German  philosophy,  becomes  the  point  of  de- 
parture of  an  entire  revolution  in  the  conception  of  finality. 
'  We  will  not  here  cavil  with  natural  reason,'  he  says,  '  on  this- 
argument,  in  wh-xch.,  founding  on  the  analogy  of  some  produc- 
tions of  nature  with  the  products  of  human  art,  it  concludes  that 
nature  must  have  as  its  principle  a  causality  of  the  same  kind.'' 
This  analogical  reasoning  is  what  we  have  hitherto  made  use 
of  to  prove  natural  finality ;  but  to  defend  ourselves  against 
the  very  objection  of  Kant,  we  have  taken  care  only  to  make 
use  of  it  to  prove  the  existence  of  this  finality,  and  not  ta 
explain  its  cause.  Analogy  can  serve  as  a  clue  while  only 
nature  is  concerned ;  whether  it  can  also  enable  us  to  pass 
beyond  nature  is  quite  another  question.  However,  since 
Kant  himself  here  sets  aside  this  difficulty  as  a  cavil,  this  i& 
not  the  time  to  raise  it,  and  we  will  revert  to  it  at  the  fit 
time  and  place.^ 

This  difficulty  being  adjourned,  there  remain  two  objections 
urged  by  Kant  against  the  proof  of  final  causes.  The  first  is 
that  that  proof,  if  it  were  considered  as  valid  in  itself,  would 
only  demonstrate  that  there  is  an  architect  but  not  a  creator  of 
the  world,  —  that  it  is  the  form  of  the  world,  not  its  matter, 
that  is  contingent.  To  prove  the  contingency  of  the  matter 
of  the  world  would  need  an  entirely  different  argument  than 
this. 

Thus,  according  to  this  first  objection,  the  argument  would 
indeed  prove,  according  to  Kant,  that  the  form  of  the  world 

'■  This  will  be  the  object  of  the  two  following  chapters. 


THE   niYSICO-THEOLOGICAL  PROOF.  30^ 

is  contingent,  —  that  is,  supposes  a  cause,  —  but  it  does  not 
prove  this  of  the  matter.  The  distribution  of  the  elements, 
and  tlieir  co-ordination  according  to  a  plan,  would  suppose  a 
cause ;  but  as  to  the  elements,  the  very  atoms  composing  the 
material  of  the  world,  nothing  proves  them  to  have  a  cause, 
and  that  they  do  not  pre-exist  necessarily  and  eternally. 

The  second  objection  is,  that  the  argument,  resting  only 
upon  experience,  —  that  is,  upon  imperfect,  contingent,  and 
limited  things,  —  can  only  infer  a  proportionate  cause ;  in 
other  words,  a  cause  which  is  itself  relative  and  imperfecta 
One  can  only  rise  to  a  very  wise,  very  skilful,  very  powerful 
cause  ;  and  it  is  only  by  imperceptibly  changing  the  argument 
that  we  infer  an  entirely  wise,  entirely  skilful,  and  all  power- 
ful cause.  '  The  physico-theological  proof,  then,  finds  itself 
arrested  in  the  midst  of  its  undertaking ;  in  its  difficulty  it 
leaps  of  a  sudden  to  the  cosmological  proof,  which  is  itself 
only  a  disguised  ontological  proof.  .  .  .  After  having  gone  a 
good  way  on  the  ground  of  nature  and  experience,  the  par- 
tisans of  this  proof  suddenly  abandon  this  domain,  and  rush 
into  the  region  of  pure  possibilities.'  The  conclusion  is  that 
the  proof  of  final  causes  only  gives  us  a  relative  and  indeter- 
minate cause,  and  leaves  us  in  complete  ignorance  as  to  its 
nature ;  for  '  there  is  no  determinate  concept  but  that  which 
comprehends  all  possible  perfection,  and  it  is  only  the  whole 
(jomnitudo')  of  reality  that  is  completely  determinate.' 

It  has  been  generally  agreed,  even  in  the  modern  spiritu- 
alist school,  to  accept  the  two  preceding  objections.  It  has 
been  acknowledged  that  Kant  has  clearly  limited  the  range 
of  the  proof  of  final  causes,  and  that  we  must  have  recourse 
to  other  proofs  to  complete  the  demonstration. 

The  masters  of  eclectic  spiritualism,  M.  V.  Cousin  and 
M.  Emile  Saisset,  express  themselves  on  this  question  as 
follows :  — 

'  We  are  not  afraid  of  criticism  for  the  principle  of  final 
causes,'  says  M.  Cousin,^  '  but  we  believe,  with  Kant,  that  its 

1  Philosophie  de  Kant,  6«  le^on,  p.  217. 


304 


BOOK  II.  CHAPTER  I. 


range  must  not  be  exaggerated.  In  fact,  the  harmony  of  the 
phenomena  of  nature  only  proves  an  architect  of  the  world. 
One  may  admit  a  supreme  architect,  and  deny  that  he  can  be 
the  creator.  These  are  two  entirely  different  things.  In  the 
second  place,  if  we  do  not  pass  beyond  the  argument  of  final 
causes,  that  greatness  of  the  worker  which  we  conceive  pro- 
portionate to  his  works  is  quite  indeterminate,  and  experi- 
ence will  never  give  us  the  idea  of  the  omnipotence,  perfect 
wisdom,  and  absolute  unit}^  of  the  supreme  author.'  '  These 
objections  are  valid,'  says  M.  Emile  Saisset ;  ^  '  this  dialectic 
is  irref atable  ;  but  what  does  it  prove  ?  Not  that  the  argu- 
ment from  final  causes  is  false,  but  that  it  is  insufficient;  not 
that  it  must  be  despised  or  rejected,  but  that  it  should  be 
confined  to  its  just  range.  It  does  not  prove  the  existence 
of  the  creator;  it  does  not  even  prove  the  existence  of  an 
infinite  intelligence ;  but  it  serves  powerfully  to  confirm 
it.' 

Perhaps  it  is  a  little  presumptuous  to  try  to  gain  back 
from  Kant,  if  not  all,  at  least  a  part  of  what  such  wise  phi- 
losophers have  thought  it  their  duty  to  yield  to  him.  Still 
let  us  try.  I  shall  not  insist  on  noticing  how  inexact  it  is  to 
blame  an  argument  for  not  proving  what  it  is  in  no  way 
meant  to  prove.  The  proof  of  final  causes  does  not  aim  to 
prove  the  creation  of  the  world ;  it  might  as  well  be  criti- 
cised because  it  does  not  prove  the  immortality  of  the  soul. 
There  is  a  time  for  everything,  and  in  good  logic  we  ought 
to  ask  of  every  proof  only  what  it  promises.  The  existence 
of  God  is  one  thing ;  creation  is  another.  One  may  admit  a 
God  without  admitting  creation  ex  niJiilo.  Plato,  Aristotle, 
and  the  Stoics  admitted  the  existence  of  God,  without  know- 
ing anything  of  the  dogma  of  creation.  Does  the  physico- 
theological  argument  prove,  or  does  it  not,  an  intelligent 
cause  of  the  world?  That  is  the  whole.  If  it  does,  the 
argun  ent  is  good,  even  if  it  did  not  prove  a  creating  God, 
nor  even  a  God  absolutely  perfect.     That  will  be  matter  for 

1  Philosophie  religieuse,  2d  ed.  t.  ii.  Appendix. 


THE    PIIYSICO-TIIEOLOGICAL   TROOF.  305 

.another  discussion.  Tlie  two  objections  of  Kant,  then,  as  it 
seems  to  us,  fall  into  the  sophism  of  the  ignoratio  elenchi. 

But  we  will  try  to  go  farther,  and  to  prove  that  Kant's  two 
objections  cannot  subsist  together :  the  first  destroys  the 
second,  and  of  the  two  difficulties  raised  at  once,  the  first  can 
alone  subsist.- 

If,  in  fact,  it  be  maintained  that  God  is  only  the  architect 
of  the  world,  and  that  only  the  form  of  things  is  contingent, 
that  means  that  matter  is  not  so.  If  matter  is  not  contingent, 
—  that  means  that  it  is  necessary,  —  it  exists  of  itself,  it  has 
in  itself  the  reason  of  its  existence ;  this  is  the  datum  of  the 
objection.  But  if  we  suppose  matter  to  be  necessary,  for  the 
same  reason  we  must  suppose  the  cause  that  gives  the  form 
to  be  necessary,  on  the  same  ground  as  the  matter  itself,  and 
that  it  is  self-existent.  How,  in  short,  can  it  be  admitted  that 
a  non-necessary  cause  would  have  the  power  to  act  on  a 
necessary  matter,  and  to  give  it  orders  ?  If  matter  has  not 
the  principle  of  order  and  harmony  in  itself,  how  should  that 
principle  be  found  in  an  external  and  contingent  cause  ?  If 
that  organizing  cause  were  contingent,  whence  would  it  have 
derived  the  reason  of  its  existence?  This  could  only  be  in 
the  self-existent  matter ;  but  how  can  it  be  supposed  that  a 
cause,  deriving  its  existence  from  matter,  should  be  capable 
of  modifying  and  transforming  it,  and  imprinting  order  and 
harmony  upon  it  ?  Would  not  this  be  as  if  it  were  said  that 
matter  had  given  these  to  itself,  which  the  objection  ought 
not  to  assume  ?  This  cause  does  not,  then,  proceed  from 
matter;  it  is,  therefore,  self-existent,  or  is  derived  from 
a  self-existent  cause.  Notice,  besides,  that  the  processus  in 
infinitum  would  here  avail  nothing,  for  by  hypothesis  the 

1  We  had  admitted  in  the  first  edition  that  the  two  objections  of  Kant  de- 
stroyed each  other,  and  that  if  the  second  were  granted  (namely,  the  imperfec- 
tion of  the  world),  one  thereby  destroyed  the  idea  of  an  architect  God.  We 
withdraw  this  assertion,  and  limit  ourselves  to  affirming  that  the  first  objection 
destroys  the  second.  In  other  words,  we  grant  that  the  proof  of  final  causes 
only  infers  an  architect  God;  but  it  seems  to  lis  that  that  suffices  to  infer  a 
perfect  wisdom.  As  to  the  reason  that  has  made  us  abandon  the  second  argu- 
ment, it  will  be  seen  in  the  Appendix  X. 


806  BOOK  II.  CHAPTER  I, 

matter  supposed  necessary  is  also  a  last  term ;  therefore, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  cause  must  likewise  have  a  last 
term. 

From  this  it  follows  that  the  organizing  cause  of  the  world 
is  a  cause  b}^  itself,  —  that  is  to  say,  that  it  is  an  absolute 
cause ;  for  absolute  means  nothing  else  than  what  is  self- 
sufficient,  what  has  need  of  nothing  else  to  exist.  It  is  what 
Kant  calls  the  unconditioned,  what  does  not  presuppose  any 
condition ;  the  to  avvTroOerov  of  Plato.  The  hypothesis  of  ne- 
cessary matter,  contained  in  the  objection,  puts  us  in  posses- 
sion of  the  idea  of  the  absolute ;  and  once  in  possession  of 
this  idea,  we  are  entitled  and  even  constrained  to  suppose  it 
in  the  cause  as  well  as  in  matter. 

But  then  it  is  evident  that  the  first  objection  destroys  th& 
second.  What  was  the  latter  ?  This,  that  from  a  contingent 
world  we  cannot  rise  to  an  absolute  cause ;  that  there  i& 
not  in  the  world  material  enough  to  make  a  primary  being 
sufficient  for  all.  But  the  first  objection,  by  the  hypothesis 
of  a  pre-existent  —  that  is,  necessary  —  matter,  furnishes  the 
material  of  the  absolute  idea  of  which  I  have  need.  If  the 
first  cause  is  absolute,  it  will  be  so  in  all  its  attributes :  being 
by  hypothesis  intelligent,  it  will  be  omniscient ;  being  power- 
ful, it  will  be  omnipotent ;  being  good,  it  will  be  perfectly 
good,  and  so  on.  Will  it  be  said  that  this  cause  is  not 
absolute  because  it  only  organizes,  not  creates,  and  that  it  is 
limited  by  the  matter  on  which  it  acts  ?  But  if  there  were 
some  contradiction  here,  it  would  rather  belong  to  the  objec- 
tion than  to  the  argument  itself,  and  we  would  very  soon  be 
brought  to  conclude  that  a  cause  cannot  be  absolute  without 
existing  alone,  which  would  destro}^  the  hypothesis  of  a  pre- 
existing matter.  We  may  affirm,  then,  that  the  Divine 
Architect  would  very  speedily  and  inevitably  lead  to  the 
Divine  Creator.  But  without  pressing  this  conclusion,  suffice 
it  to  remark,  that  matter  does  not  limit  the  first  cause  in  its 
essence,  but  only  in  its  action ;  that  God  could  still  be,  for 
instance,  the  Good  in  itself  of  Plato,  the  pure  Art  of  Aristotler 


THE  PHYSICO-THEOLOGICAL  PROOF.  307 

while  yet  as  regards  the  world  only  organizer,  and  not  cre- 
ator, which  would  amply  suffice. 

The  truth  is  that,  according  to  Kant,  the  organizing  cause 
is  not  only  contingent,  relative,  and  imperfect  —  it  is  indeter- 
minate to  the  extent  that  it  cannot  even  be  said  whether  it  is 
one  ov  several ;  and  the  heathen  did  not  reason  so  badly  in 
admitting  the  plurality  of  gods.  Seeing,  in  short,  means  and 
ends,  but  ends  that  did  not  mutually  agree,  they  supposed  as 
many  causes  as  they  saw  categories  of  ends.  Hence  polytheism, 
which  appears  a  legitimate  product  of  the  hypothesis  of  final 
causes.  It  is  the  same  with  Manichseism.  The  world  con- 
sisting of  good  and  evil,  order  and  disorder,  in  strict  reason 
it  seems  quite  as  legitimate  to  infer  an  evil  cause  as  a  good 
one,  or  else  an  indeterminate  cause,  neither  good  nor  bad, 
and  of  which  nothing  is  known  but  that  it  is. 

We  are  far  from  saying  that  there  is  no  share  of  truth 
in  these  objections,  but  we  need  not  admit  more  than  is 
necessary.  And  here  again  this  part  of  the  objection  may 
be  circumscribed. 

First,  should  it  be  said,  strictly  speaking,  that  we  have  still 
the  right  at  the  present  day  to  infer  Manichaeism  or  polythe- 
ism, I  will  ask,  then,  why  humanity  has  ceased  to  be  poly- 
theistic and  Manichsean  in  proportion  as  it  has  become  more 
enlightened.  No  doubt  polytheism  might  be  historically  a 
plausible  and  relatively  legitimate  hypothesis.  It  is  infinitely 
superior  to  fetishism  and  to  coarse  mechanism.  Doubtless  it 
is  a  first  glance  at  nature,  a  first  interpretation  of  the  phe- 
nomena—  an  interpretation  sufficiently  acceptable  in  relation 
+0  the  knowledge  of  the  epoch.  But  in  proportion  as  nature 
has  been  studied,  all  these  apparently  divergent  effects  have 
been  seen  to  converge  towards  one  centre,  all  these  ends  to  co- 
ordinate themselves  to  form  one  whole,  and  show  themselves 
with  admirable  harmony.  The  stars  and  the  earth  have  been 
seen  to  be  connected  by  bonds  and  common  motions,  to  show 
even  a  common  substance,  for  we  find  in  the  sun  the  elements 
of  our  mineral  world.    We  see  by  the  progress  of  the  sciencea 


308 


BOOK  II.  CHAPTER  I. 


all  the  classifications  of  causes  being  gradually  simplified. 
Thus,  in  the  scientific  world,  polytheism  disappears,  —  that 
is,  the  hypothesis  of  several  causes  is  constantly  giving  place 
to  unity.  Hence  we  need  not  wonder  that  humanity  at  last 
came  to  understand  that  it  was  to  take  imaginary  beings  for 
realities,  to  create  as  many  gods  as  phenomena,  and  that  we 
must  not  multiply  beings  needlessly.  If,  then,  there  is  an 
intelligent  cause  of  the  world,  it  must  be  one.  The  same 
holds  as  to  Manichseism.  Here  experience  is  less  advanced 
than  for  the  multiplicity  of  causes.  No  doubt,  we  are  far 
from  having  explained  all  in  the  world  that  is  called  evil. 
There  remains  a  certain  latitude  allowed  the  hypothesis  of 
something  bad  or  impotent  in  the  first  principle,  if,  that  is, 
one  occupy  the  point  of  view  of  experience  alone.  And  yet, 
even  from  this  point  of  view,  it  may  be  said  that  the  hypothe- 
sis of  an  evil  or  impotent  principle  has  been,  at  the  very  least, 
driven  back.  Have  not  a  great  many  phenomena  considered 
pernicious  been  reduced  to  phenomena  conformable  to  the 
order  of  things?  Did  not  the  idea  of  a  wicked  and  cruel 
God  arise  at  the  first  from  the  contemplation  of  volcanoes, 
comets,  and  all  that,  being  unexpected,  strikes  the  senses  or 
threatens  the  life  of  men?  Yet  we  now  know  that  many  of 
these  phenomena  are  innocent,  and  that  they  only  differ  by 
intensity  from  the  most  simple  that  continually  surround  us 
and  that  have  nothing  pernicious  in  them.  The  eruption  of  a 
volcano  is  no  more  extraordinary  than  the  boiling  over  of  water 
in  a  kettle.  The  lightning  that  throws  down  buildings,  splits 
and  plucks  up  trees,  is  like  the  electric  spark  with  which  we 
play.  In  fine,  apart  from  pain,  no  phenomenon  can  strictly  be 
called  a  disorder  of  nature  ;  consequently  there  is  in  it  nothing 
to  indicate  a  pernicious  and  unreasonable  power.  Coming  to 
pain,  the  explanation  presents  more  difficulty ;  yet  it  cannot 
be  denied  that  the  studies  of  philosophers  and  moralists  have 
at  least  singularly  diminished  the  force  of  the  argument.  It 
is  known  to  be  often  a  salutary  warning,  a  necessary  stimulus 
to  human  activity,  an  incitement  to  the  progress  of  the  human 


THE   PIIYSICO-THEOLOGICAL  PROOF.  309 

race.  Pain  can  thus  be  explained  to  a  certain  extent  from 
the  point  of  view  of  final  causes.  As  to  moral  evil,  it  is  a 
phenomenon  of  an  order  so  different,  and  so  entirely  beyond 
what  we  have  hitherto  been  studying,  that  we  are  warranted 
to  set  aside  this  aspect  of  the  question.  We  only  remark 
that,  when  we  see  evil  restrained  in  society  as  the  result  of 
the  progress  of  manners  and  ideas,  we  find  here  ag^in,  if  not  a 
soiutiou,  at  least  a  diminution  of  the  difficulty.  Thus  apart 
from  objections  a  priori,  which  are  decisive  against  Maniohse- 
ism,  and  even  from  the  point  of  view  of  experience,  from 
which  this  doctrine  might  still  derive  some  support,  we  see 
that  a  certain  number  of  phenomena,  which  at  first  appeared 
most  favourable  to  the  idea  of  a  pernicious  power,  have  ad- 
mitted of  explanation.  We  are,  therefore,  entitled  to  suppose 
that  the  others  will  be  explained  in  the  same  way,  or  would 
be  explained  if  the  order  of  things  were  better  known. 

Kant  further  objects  to  the  proof  from  final  causes  as 
powerless  to  give  us  a  God  ajyart  from  the  world,  or  at  leasi 
to  rise  to  this,  except  by  illegitimately  going  beyond  itself,, 
and  surreptitiously  borrowing  the  aid  of  the  ontological  or 
cosmological  proof.  But  here  again,  as  we  think,  there  is  a 
confusion  of  ideas. 

What  is  meant  by  these  words,  apart  from  the  loorld^ 
Is  it  simply,  not  forming  part  of  the  chain  of  finite  and  con 
tingent  beings  that  we  seek  to  explain  ?  In  this  sense  it  i& 
evident,  in  fact,  that  the  cause  of  the  world  is  apart  from  the 
world.  The  world  comprising  all  the  things  of  experience, 
none  of  these  things  is  qualified  to  be,  more  than  another,  the 
universal  cause ;  the  cause  of  the  world,  behoving  to  be 
adequate  to  the  entire  series  of  the  phenomena,  cannot  be 
confounded  with  any  of  them  in  particular.  In  this  sense 
the  distinction  of  the  world  and  its  cause  is  incontestable,  and 
rests  simply  on  the  principle  of  causality,  in  virtue  of  which 
the  cause  is  distinct  from  its  effect.  But  if  now  by  this^ 
expression,  apart  from  the  ivorld,  there  is  meant  a  more  pro- 
found distinction  and  separation,  —  for  instance,  a  distinction 


SIO 


BOOK  II.  CHAPTER  I. 


of  substance,  —  such  a  distinction,  in  fact,  transcends  the  data 
of  the  phjsico-theological  proof,  but  no  more  is  it  required  by 
the  question.  The  existence  of  an  intelligent  cause  of  the 
universe  is  one  thing,  the  transcendence  or  immanence  of 
that  cause  is  another.  Even  if  we  admitted,  with  the  Stoics, 
a  soul  of  the  world,  an  active  principle  of  which  nature 
would  only  be  the  passive  side,  God  would  be  none  the  less 
an  intelligent  cause  of  the  universe ;  and  if  the  proof  goes 
no  farther,  it  goes  at  least  this  length,  and  that  is  the  only 
thing  in  question  at  present. 

Metaphysicians  are  too  often  in  the  wrong  in  setting  up  the 
deadly  maxim  of  radical  politicians  —  all  or  nothing.  They 
do  not  sufficientl}^  admit  what  may  be  called  the  current  coin 
of  truth.  A  half,  third,  or  quarter  of  the  truth  has  no  value 
in  their  eyes,  if  all  they  ask  be  not  granted  them.  However, 
there  is  a  medium  between  knowing  all  and  knowing  nothing ; 
and  in  every  question,  between  the  extreme  terms  there  are 
many  degrees.  Between  the  hypothesis  of  a  nature  produced 
by  chance,  and  that  of  a  supreme  cause  absolutely  perfect, 
there  may  be  many  shades  of  opinion,  of  which  none  is  to  be 
despised.  That  nature  supposes  an  ordering  principle  is  a 
truth  of  first  rank,  whatever  else  may  be  the  more  or  less 
extended  meaning  that  may  be  given  to  this  principle.  The 
criticism  of  Kant,  despite  the  two  objections  set  forth,  allows 
this  proposition,  in  its  essence,  to  stand ;  and  on  this  ground 
it  could  not  prevent  our  discussion  from  advancing  a  step. 
From  finality,  considered  as  a  natural  law,  we  have  passed 
to  its  cause,  and  to  an  intelligent  cause.  What  are  the  degree 
and  nature  of  this  intelligence  ?  Is  it  interior  or  exterior  to 
nature  ?  This  is  what  remains  in  suspense  ;  but  that  which 
has  been  gained  would  be  none  the  less  of  great  value. 

Kant,  however,  believes  that  there  results  from  the  discus- 
sion instituted  by  him  a  critical  conclusion  much  graver  than 
what  we  have  just  indicated  —  namely,  that  the  proof  in 
question  only  supplies  us  with  a  regulative^  not  a  co7istitutive^ 
principle,  —  that  is,  that  this  proof  suggests  to  us,  indeed,  a 


THE  PHYSICO-THEOLOGICAL  PROOF.  311 

hypothesis  useful,  in  the  course  of  scientific  researches,  for 
conceiving  a  certain  systematic  unity  in  nature,  but  not  a 
real  principle,  corresponding  to  an  effective  and  essential  law 
of  the  nature  of  things.^  But  it  happens  that  it  is  precisely 
in  quality  of  a  hypothesis  regulative  of  scientific  researches 
that  the  theory  of  final  causes  is  useless  or  injurious.  As  a 
rule^  then,  it  can  be  dispensed  with.  It  is,  on  the  other  hand, 
in  quality  of  truth  that  it  is  imposed  upon  us  ;  but  what  is 
true  is  essentially  constitutive.  Besides,  one  does  not  see 
how  this  critical  conclusion  should  result  from  the  previous 
discussion.  Because  the  cause  of  the  world  was  only  organ- 
izing, and  not  creative,  — a  relative,  not  an  absolute  cause,  — 
how  should  it  follow  that  finality  is  only  an  idea,  a  rule,  and 
has  no  relation  to  objective  reality  ?  However  limited  may 
be  the  field  of  finality,  while  the  very  basis  of  the  argument 
is  conceded,  the  extent  of  the  conclusions  may  be  limited ; 
but  one  cannot  change  their  nature,  nor  conclude  from  the 
real  to  the  ideal.  It  is  on  the  real  that  the  physico-theo- 
logical  argument  takes  its  stand.  This  basis  not  being 
disputed,  the  degree  of  the  presumed  cause  matters  little ; 
uncertainty  regarding  the  degree  of  the  cause  does  not  suffice 
to  transfer  it  from  one  order  to  another  —  from  reality  to 
ideality.  Now,  in  the  previous  criticism,  Kant  did  not  make 
the  discussion  bear  on  the  reality  of  the  data  (except  in  a 
parenthesis  scarcely  indicated),  and  only  insisted  on  the  dis- 
proportion between  the  latter  and  an  absolute  cause.  But 
because  that  cause  was  not  absolute,  it  would  not  follow  that 
it  was  ideal. 

It  seems  that  there  is  a  kind  of  contradiction  in  Kant's 
thought  between  what  he  at  first   grants   to    the   physico- 


1  It  must  not  be  lost  sight  of  that  our  whole  controversy  at  present  only- 
bears  upon  Kant's  argumentation  in  the  Critique  of  Pxire  Reason,  and  that  we 
leave  aside  the  doctrine  of  finality  as  it  is  set  forth  in  the  Critique  of  the  Judg- 
ment, which  will  be  the  object  of  the  following  chapter.  The  only  question 
debated  here  is  whether,  from  the  two  objections  above  set  forth,  and  which 
are  all  that  Kant  handles  exprofesso  in  the  Pure  Reason,  it  results  that  finality 
has  only  a  regulative  and  not  a  constitutive  value,  as  he  affirms. 


812  BOOK  II.   CHAPTEB    1. 

theological  argument  and  the  meaning  he  attributes  to  it  m 
the  end.  'It  would  be,' he  says,  ' not  only  to  deprive  our- 
selves of  a  consolation,  but  even  to  attempt  the  impossible^  to 
pretend  to  take  away  something  from  the  authority  of  this 
proof'  He  here,  then,  accords  to  this  proof  at  least  a  prac- 
tical and  instinctive  value,  which  cannot  be  diminished  '  by 
/he  uncertainties  of  a  subtle  and  abstract  speculation.'  How- 
ever, if  this  proof  is  limited  finally  to  furnishing  us  with  a 
rule  for  the  interpretation  of  nature,  —  if  it  is  only  a  '  con- 
venient and  useful  hypothesis,  which,  in  any  case,  can  do  no 
harm,'  —  the  authority  of  the  argument  as  a  proof  of  the 
existence  of  God  absolutely  disappears. 

Kant  tells  us  that  if  the  principle  of  final  causes  were  con- 
stitutive (that  is,  objective),  and  not  simply  regulative  (that 
is,  hypothetical),  the  consequence  of  it  would  be  inactive 
reason  (ignava  ratio').  The  investigation  of  nature  would 
then  be  regarded  as  completely  achieved,  and  reason  would 
give  itself  to  repose,  as  if  it  had  accomplished  its  work ;  the 
ends  of  nature  would  free  us  from  investigating  its  causes, 
and  we  would  be  led  to  recur  too  easily  to  the  unfathomable 
decrees  of  the  divine  wisdom.  But  it  seems  to  us  that  this 
difficulty  rather  bears  against  Kant  himself  than  against  the 
opposite  doctrine.  If  finality  is  nothing  else  than  a  principle 
regulative  of  the  scientific  use  of  the  reason,  and  the  antici- 
pated expression  of  the  unity  of  nature,  we  will  then  be 
tempted  everywhere  to  assume  unity  and  ends,  and  will  be 
so  much  the  less  inclined  to  refrain  from  this,  that  we  will 
always  be  able  to  say  to  ourselves  that  it  only  regards  pro- 
visional and  conventional  hypotheses.  If,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  theory  of  final  causes  has  only  a  theological,  and  not  a 
scientific  value  —  if  it  regards  not  the  immediate  explanation 
of  the  phenomena,  but  their  last  reason,  wherein  can  the 
doctrine  of  a  creative  or  ordering  intelligence  injure  the 
sciences  and  the  study  of  nature  ?  On  the  contrary,  as  we 
have  often  said,  the  assumption  of  ends  can  in  no  way  oppose 
the  investigation  of  causes,  since  there  can  only  be  ends  il 


THE   PIIYSICO-THEOLOGICAL  PROOF.  313 

there  are  causes.  How  could  a  means  he  fit  for  an  end,  if  it 
were  not  at  the  same  time  a  cause  cajmble  of  producing  that 
effect  i'  In  an  experimental  and  scientific  point  of  view,  then, 
it  will  always  be  possible  to  place  the  end  out  of  account  in 
investigating  nature,  and  the  doctrine  of  a  supreme  cause  will 
no  more  encourage  inactive  reason  than  any  other.  Whatever 
h^'pothesis  may  be  formed  as  to  the  principle  of  things,  in- 
active or  adventurous  minds  will  alwaj-s  be  able  to  dispense 
with  the  study  of  particular  laws  and  immediate  causes  by 
a  recourse  to  the  first  cause.  It  will  be  said,  for  instance,  of 
a  given  phenomenon,  that  it  is  a  mode  of  motion,  and  thus 
one  will  avoid  determining  what  mode  of  motion  it  may  be, 
and  according  to  what  law  it  is  governed.  'The  laws  of 
nature '  will  be  appealed  to  as  immoderately  as  is  the  divine 
wisdom  in  another  camp.  Reciprocally,  a  partisan  of  the 
divine  wisdom  is  as  well  entitled  as  any  other  to  place  that 
conception  out  of  account  in  the  study  of  the  particular  laws 
of  nature.  Thus  the  fault  in  question  may  be  common  to 
both  sides,  and  both  sides  also  can  escape  it. 

It  results  from  the  preceding  discussion  that  the  objections 
raised  by  Kant  in  the  Critique  of  Pure  Reason,  against  the 
proof  of  final  causes,  only  touch,  after  all,  the  accessory  part 
of  the  argument,  and  leave  intact  the  essence  —  namely,  that 
order  implies  intelligence.  But  this  is  only  the  first  assault 
of  modern  criticism  ;  the  argument  has  still  to  undergo  many 
trials  before  emerging  intact  from  the  fire  of  debate,  as  will 
be  seen  in  the  following  chapters.^ 

1  See  Appendix  X.,  two  notes  relative  to  the  physico-theological  argument. 


CHAPTER    II. 

SUBJECTIVE  AND  IMMANENT  FINALITY. 

rPHE  knot  of  the  argument  of  final  causes  so  called,  or 
-*-  physieo-theological  argument,  is  in  this  major  proposi- 
tion of  Bossuet :  All  order,  that  is,  all  proportion  between 
means  and  ends,  supposes  an  intelligent  cause.  But  here  also 
lies  the  radical  difficulty  of  the  argument.  That  the  order  of 
nature,  the  finality  of  the  world,  supposes  a  specific,  appro- 
priate principle  may  be  allowed ;  but  is  that  principle  neces- 
sarily an  intention,  a  will,  a  free  reflection,  capable  of  choice  ? 
This  is  another  question,  and  a  new  object  of  dispute. 

That  is  not  all.  Does  the  finality  assumed  in  nature  really 
belong  to  nature,  —  is  it  real,  objective,  or  might  it  not  be 
a  form  of  our  mind,  a  tendency  of  our  feeling,  —  in  a  word, 
a  hypothesis  more  or  less  useful  and  convenient  for  forming 
our  ideas  of  things,  but  not  an  essential,  real  law,  true  in 
itself,  as  the  veritable  laws  of  nature  behove  to  be? 

Finally,  for  a  third  difficulty.  Granting  that  finality  must 
have  a  cause,  still  is  that  cause  necessarily  anterior  and  exte- 
rior to  nature  ?  May  it  not  be  precisely  nature  itself  ?  Why 
should  it  not  be  of  the  essence  of  nature  spontaneously  to 
seek  finality. 

To  these  three  questions  correspond  three  solutions  or 
hypotheses,  which  it  is  necessary  to  examine  :  the  hypothesis 
of  subjective  finality  in  Kant ;  the  hypothesis  of  immanent^  and 
that  of  unconscious  finality  in  Schelling,  Hegel,  and  the  whole 
German  pantheism.  Is  finality  subjective  ?  Is  it  immanent  ? 
Is  it  unconscious  ?  The  first  two  of  these  questions  will  be 
the  subject  of  this  chapter,  the  third  that  of  the  two  chapters 
following. 

314 


SUBJECTIVE   FINALITY.  315 


§  1.  Subjective  Finality. 

In  his  Critique  of  Pure  Reason,  Kant  had  striven  to  limit 
and  circumscribe  the  range  of  the  physico-theological  argu- 
ment ;  but  finally  he  seemed  to  admit  the  foundation  of  it,  and, 
save  a  reservation  of  great  importance,  but  hardly  indicated,^ 
he  acknowledged  that  we  are  warranted  to  infer  from  the 
order  of  the  universe  an  intelligent  cause  —  in  a  word,  the 
essence  of  the  proof  remained  safe  and  sound.  But  it  remained 
to  examine  the  value  of  the  principle  itself,  in  virtue  of  which 
we  thus  reason.  This  new  question  he  has  examined  in  his 
Critique  of  the  Judgment,  and  has  resolved  it  in  a  much  more 
problematic  sense  than  he  appeared  to  do  in  the  Critique  of 
Pure  Reason. 

How  was  Kant  led  to  examine  the  principle  of  finality? 
He  himself  tells  us.  Because  the  principle  of  liberty,  demon- 
strated in  the  Critique  of  Practical  Reason,  implied  that  liberty 
must  realize  in  the  sensible  world  the  end  set  by  its  laws. 
In  fact,  the  ideal  conception  of  morality,  according  to  Kant, 
consists  in  conceiving  the  maxim  of  each  action  as  capable  of 
becoming  'a  universal  law  of  nature.'  This,  again,  was  to 
suppose  '  that  nature  does  not  exclude  the  possibility  of  ends 
that  must  be  attained  according  to  the  laws  of  liberty.  If 
nature  were  not,  in  fact,  susceptible  of  ends,  how  could  it 
contribute  to  the  ends  of  liberty?  Consequently  there  must 
be  a  principle,  rendering  possible  the  agreement  of  the  supra- 
sensible,  that  serves  as  a  foundation  to  nature,  with  the  con- 
ception of  liberty,  and  which  permits  the  mind  to  pass  from 
the  one  world  to  the  other.''  ^  In  a  word,  the  pure  reason  fur- 
nishes us  with  concepts  sufficient  to  constitute  nature,  to 
render  it  possible.  These  concepts,  which  are  the  categories, 
and  of  which  the  principal  is  the  concept  of  causality,  teach  us 

1  '  We  will  not  here  cavil  with  natural  reason  .  .  .  etc'    {Critique  of  Pure 
Reason,  Book  ii.  chap.  ill.  §  3).    See  above,  p.  302,  and  below,  p.  329. 
^  Critique  of  the  Judgment,  Introd.  §  ii. 


316  BOOK  II.  CHAPTER  II. 

that  there  is  a  nature  subject  to  laws  ;  and  that  would  suffice 
for  the  knowledge  of  this  nature,  and  to  give  it  a  certain 
unity.  But  such  a  nature  would  still  be  possible,  provided 
there  were  laws,  even  though  these  particular  laws  had  no 
mutual  relation,  and  should  form  separate  systems.  Only,  on 
this  hypothesis,  how  could  we  study  it  ?  We  must,  then,  have 
something  more.  We  need,  in  order  to  comprehend  nature, 
and  to  study  it  with  ease,  to  believe  that  it  forms  a  system, 
an  order,  that  the  different  parts  are  bound  together.  Hence 
these  principles :  '  Nature  makes  nothing  in  vain  ;  nature  acts 
in  the  simplest  ways ;  nature  takes  no  leaps.  (The  law  of 
continuity,  the  law  of  parsimony,  and  the  law  of  the  least 
action.y  But  all  these  maxims  may  be  reduced  to  a  funda- 
mental rule  —  namely, '  that  the  particular  laws  of  nature  must 
be  considered  according  to  a  unity  such  as  a  mind  would 
have  established,  which,  in  giving  these  laws,  would  have  had 
regard  to  our  faculty  of  knowledge,  and  have  sought  to  render 
possible  a  system  of  experience  founded  on  the  particular 
laws  of  nature.'  ^ 

This  passage  from  causality  to  finality,  or  from  the  Critique 
of  Pure  Reason  to  the  Critique  of  the  Judgment,  will  appear 
obscure  to  the  reader ;  but  it  is  because  it  is  obscure  in  Kant 
himself.  The  principle  of  causality  serves  to  constitute  a 
nature  in  general,  but  without  determining  anything  as  to 
particular  laws.  The  principles  of  pure  physics  might  still  be 
found  applicable,  even  if  one  did  not  grasp  any  determinate 
law.^  These  laws  are  thus  contingent,  and  are  only  dis- 
covered by  observation.  We,  however,  need  a  clue  to  study 
and  comprehend  them,  and  to  give  them  a  certain  unity. 
This  clue  is  the  principle  of  finality  —  a  principle  necessary, 
as  is  evident,  but  essentially  subjective. 

Here  we  must  guard  against  a  misconception.     In  a  sense 

1  Critique  of  the  Judgment,  Introd.  §  iv. 

2  For  instance,  the  principle  of  the  conservation  of  the  same  quantity  of  force 
and  matter,  the  principle  that  external  phenomena  have  an  extensive  quantity, 
etc.,  would  remain  true,  even  though  the  universe  formed  a  sort  of  chaos  with- 
out determinate  laws. 


SUBJECTIVE   FINALITY.  317 

it  is  correct  to  say  that,  in  Kant's  view,  all  the  concepts  of 
the  reason  and  the  understanding,  save  those  of  the  practical 
reason,  are  subjective.  It  is  known,  in  fact,  that  the  forms  of 
perception  (space  and  time),  and  the  laws  of  the  understand- 
ing (cause  and  substance),  are  only  the  conditions  proper  to 
the  mind  in  the  study  of  phenomena.  Thus  they  are  subjective 
laws,  since  they  are  only  the  laws  of  our  mind.  But  it  is  to 
be  noticed  that  Kant  never  employs  the  word  'subjective' 
to  express  this  meaning.  He  considers  them,  on  the  con- 
trary, objective  in  this  sense :  that  being  laws  absolutely  ne- 
cessary and  universal,  and  from  which  no  mind  can  free  itself, 
they  determine  those  phenomena  to  affect  us  as  objects. 
What  is  universally  and  necessarily  true  is  objective.  Besides, 
these  laws  are  constitutive  in  this  sense,  that  the  object  is 
really  constituted  by  them,  that  without  them  it  would  not 
be  possible,  nor  would  intuition,  experience,  or  science  itself. 

It  is  not  the  same  with  the  principle  of  finality.  This 
latter  is  subjective  in  the  proper  sense  of  the  word,  and  it  is 
so  even  with  reference  to  the  preceding  laws.  These,  in  fact, 
being  once  regarded  as  objective,  the  human  mind  may  be- 
sides have  tendencies,  dispositions,  needs,  which,  without 
being  necessary  to  constitute  an  object  of  experience  or  of 
science,  are  not  only  useful  but  indispensable  to  guide  the 
mind  in  its  researches.  It  is,  then,  if  we  may  say  so,  a  sub- 
jectivity in  the  second  degree.  These  kinds  of  principles  are 
natural  hypotheses^  ways  of  conceiving  things,  frames,  clues 
for  investigations ;  they  are  not  constitutive,  but  regulative 
principles. 

Kant  never  tires  of  repeating  that  the  principle  of  finality 
has  only  a  value  of  this  kind.  It  belongs  not  to  the  deter- 
mining, but  to  the  reflecting  judgment.  The  first,  which  is 
the  scientific  judgment  joroperly  so  called,  applies  the  law  to 
particular  facts,  without  any  kind  of  liberty.  The  second,  on 
the  other  hand,  given  a  particular  fact,  seeks  to  bring  it  under 
a  law,  to  reduce  it  to  some  general  notion.  This  is  about  the 
difference  that  exists  between  science  and  philosophy.     In  the 


318 


BOOK  II.  CHAPTER  II. 


reflections  we  make  on  things,  we  need  not  see  laws,  but  only 
thoughts.  Of  this  kind  is  the  transcendental  principle  of 
finality  :  '  The  judgment  finds  it  in  itself.  ...  It  does  not 
prescribe  it  to  nature,  because  it  is  true  that  our  reflection 
accommodates  itself  to  nature.'  Tlie  converse  is  not  true,  and 
nature,  for  its  part,  is  not  ruled  on  the  conditions  according 
to  which  we  seek  to  form  a  conception  of  it.'  Thus,  in  judg- 
ing, '  the  faculty  of  judging  thereby  gives  a  law  for  itself, 
and  not  for  nature.'  In  fact,  '  we  cannot  attribute  to  nature 
itself  something  like  a  relation  of  finality,  but  only  make  use 
of  this  conception  to  reflect  on  nature.'^  And  further:  'This 
transcendental  conception  of  a  finality  of  Jiature  is  neither 
I  a  conception  of  nature  nor  a  conception  of  liberty,  for  it 
attributes  notJiing  to  the  object ;  it  does  nothing  but  represent 
the  only  way  in  which  we  must  proceed  in  reflecting  on  the 
objects  of  nature  to  arrive  at  a  perfectly  connected  experience. 
It  is  thus  a  subjective  principle  (a  maxim)  of  the  judgment.' 
'The  judgment  contains  a  principle  a  priori oi  the  possibility 
of  nature,  but  only  in  a  subjective  point  of  vietv,  by  which  it 
prescribes,  not  to  nature  but  to  itself  a  law  .  .  .  which  it  does- 
not  find  a  priori  in  nature,  but  which  it  admits,  in  order  to 
render  palpable  the  ordinance  of  nature.'  ^  He  adds  '  that 
observation  teaches  us  nothing  of  this  law,  although  it  may 
confirm  it.'  In  fine,  it  is  the  very  liberty  of  our  mind  in  the 
application  of  this  law  that  is  the  source  of  the  pleasure  we 
find  in  it. 

Kant  attributes  this  character  of  subjectivity  to  the  two 
kinds  of  finality  he  has  distinguished  —  esthetical  and  tele- 
ological  finality,  which  he  also  calls  subjective  and  objective 
finality  respectively.^  Speaking  of  the  first,  —  that  is,  of 
the  beautiful,  —  he  distinguishes  the  realism  and  the  idealism 

1  Critique  of  the  Judgment,  Introd.  §  iv.  "  Ibid.  Introd.  §  v. 

8  There  are  so  many  degrees  of  subjective  and  objective  in  Kant  that  one  at 
last  gets  lost  in  them.  Here  the  two  species  of  finality  are  subjective  in  the 
sense  we  have  just  stated;  but  the  one  (the  beautiful)  is  only  the  agreement  of 
the  object  whh  our  esthetic  faculties.  The  other  (finality  properly  so  called  — 
that  of  organized  beings,  for  instance)  is  the  agreement  of  the  object  with  it9 
concept.    It  has  thus  some  foundation  in  the  object  itself. 


SUBJECTIVE  FINALITY.  819 

of  finality.  According  to  the  first  of  these  conceptions,  the 
beautiful  would  be  '  like  a  real  end  that  nature  proposes  to 
itself : "  according  to  the  second,  it  would  be  '  only  an  agree- 
ment established  without  an  end,  of  itself  and  in  an  accidental 
loay^  between  the  faculty  of  judging  and  the  forms  of  nature.' 
lie  adds  that  '  nature  everywhere,  in  its  free  formations, 
reveals  a  mechanical  tendency  to  the  production  of  forms 
which  seem  to  have  been  expressly  made  for  the  esthetic 
use  of  our  judgment ;  and  we  do  not  find  in  it  the  least 
reason  to  suspect  that  an^^thing  more  is  needed  for  this  than 
the  simple  mechanism  of  nature  as  nature,  so  that  the  agree- 
ment of  these  forms  with  our  judgment  may  quite  well  be 
derived  from  that  mechanism  without  any  idea  serving  as  a 
principle  to  nature.'  If  it  is  so  in  the  formation  of  crystals, 
for  instance,  why  should  it  not  be  the  same  for  the  production 
of  the  most  beautiful  forms  ?  In  fine,  what  proves  that  our 
judgments  on  the  beautiful  are  eminently  subjective  is  'that, 
in  general,  when  we  judge  of  beauty,  we  seek  in  ourselves 
a  priori  the  measure  of  our  judgment.  ...  It  is  we  whO' 
receive  nature  with  favour,  not  it  that  does  us  one.'  ^ 

Ought  we  now,  according  to  Kant,  to  attribute  more  real- 
ity to  the  finality  he  calls  objective  (that  is,  what  constitutes, 
properly  speaking,  the  relation  of  means  and  end)  than  he 
attributes,  as  we  have  just  seen,  to  subjective  or  esthetic 
finality  ?  No ;  and  it  even  seems  that  Kant  attributes  still 
less  to  it,  for  he  says  subjective  finality  still  rests  on  some 
principle  a  priori^  while  objective  finality  (final  causes  prop- 
erly so  called)  only  rests  on  analogy.  It  is  a  '  problematic ' 
principle,  which  one  will  do  well  to  admit  in  the  investiga- 
tion of  nature,  but  on  condition  that  it  shall  only  be  made  a 
principle  of  observation  and  investigation  by  analogy  with  the 
causality  determined  by  ends,  and  '  that  one  shall  not  pretend 
to  explaiJi  anything  thereby.''  ^  Kant,  however,  acknowledges  ^ 
that  the  objective  teleological  principle  has  also  '  some  foun- 
dation a  priori^''  not  in  so  far  as  one  considers  'nature  in 

1  Critique  of  the  Judgment,  t.  i.  §  Ivii.        2  xiid.  t.  n.  §  Ix.        3  Ibid.  §  Ixv- 


320  BOOK  II.   CHAPTER  II. 

general  as  a  collection  of  objects  of  sense,'  ^  but  so  far  as  one 
considers  '  an  organized  production  of  nature  ; '  only,  yet  once 
more,  it  is  'a  regulative  principle,'  'a  maxim."  This  concept, 
which  has  a  foundation  a  priori  in  the  mind,  and  a  deter- 
mining notion  in  the  life  of  organized  beings,  extends  at  once 
to  the  whole  of  nature,  and  is  legitimately  generalized  under 
this  form  :  '  Nature  makes  nothing  in  vain  ; '  but  it  is  always 
'subjectively,'  as  a  'maxim,'  as  'a  regulative,  not  a  constitu- 
tive principle,'  as  a  '  clue '  in  our  researches,  that  we  are 
allowed  to  admit  it.^  Even  thus  restricted,  the  principle  of 
finality  can  only  be  warranted  in  the  study  of  nature  on  con- 
dition of  being  again  circumscribed  within  its  own  limits, 
and  not  complicated  with  another  concept  —  that  of  God. 
Teleology  must  remain  distinct  from  theology.^  '  If  we  in- 
troduce into  the  science  of  nature  the  concept  of  God  to 
explain  finality  in  nature,  and  then  make  use  of  this  finality 
to  prove  that  there  is  a  God,  each  of  these  two  sciences  loses 
its  consistency.'  Consequently,  one  must  limit  oneself  to  the 
modest  expression,  '  ends  of  nature,'  before  inquiring  '  of  the 
cause  of  nature.'  If  physics  would  confine  itself  within  its 
own  limits,  '  it  must  set  entirely  aside  the  question  whether 
the  ends  of  nature  are  intentio7ial  or  not.  ...  It  is  enough 
that  there  are  objects  which  can  only  be  explained  by  taking 
the  idea  of  end  for  a  principle.'  One  can  employ  metaphysi- 
cally, and  for  the  convenience  of  use,  the  expressions,  wisdom, 
economy,  foresight  of  nature,  'without  therefore  making  of  it 
an  intelligent  being,  which  would  be  absurd,  but  also  without 
venturing  to  place  outside  of  it,  as  nature's  workman,  another 
intelligent  being,  which  would  be  rash.'^ 

In  fine,  the  doctrine  of  Kant  is  summed  up,  as  it  seems, 
most  clearly  in  the  following  passage  :  — '  It  is  impossible  for 
us  to  explain  organized  beings,  and  their  internal  possibility, 
by  purely  mechanical  principles  of  nature ;    and  it  may  be 

1  Critique  of  the  Judgment,  §  Ix. 

2  All  these  expressions  are  contained  in  the  same  passage,  §  Ixv. 
8  Critique  of  the  Judgment,  §  Ixvii.  *  Ihid. 


SUBJECTIVE  FINALITY.  321 

boldly  maintained  with  equal  certainty  that  it  is  absurd  for 
men  to  try  any  such  thing,  and  to  hope  that  some  new  New- 
ton will  one  day  be  able  to  explain  the  production  of  a  blade 
of  grass  by  natural  laws  over  which  no  design  has  presided. 
for  that  is  a  vie^v^  which  must  be  absolutely  denied  to  man. 
But  then,  on  the  other  hand,  there  would  be  great  presump- 
tion in  thinking  that,  if  we  could  penetrate  to  the  principle 
of  nature  in  the  specification  of  natural  laws,  we  could  not 
find  a  principle  of  the  possibility  of  organized  beings  which 
would  dispense  with  our  referring  their  production  to  design  ; 
for  how  can  we  know  that  ?  '  ^ 

In  a  word,  finality  is  a  hypothesis,  and  even  a  necessary 
hypothesis,  given  the  conformation  of  the  human  mind ;  but 
nothing  warrants  us  to  suppose  that  this  hypothesis  has  an 
objective  foundation  in  reality,  and  that  an  understanding 
that  should  penetrate  to  the  very  principle  of  nature  would 
be  still  obliged  to  conform  to  it. 

We  do  not  entirely  reject  this  doctrine  of  Kant.  We  even 
partly  accept  it,  but  on  condition  of  interpreting  it,  and  giv- 
ing it  a  different  meaning. 

We  distinguish  two  sorts  of  hypotheses,  —  one  which  may 
be  called  objective  and  real ;  the  other  subjective  and  fgurative. 
In  both  cases,  the  hypothesis  is  never  more  than  a  supposi- 
tion —  that  is,  a  coiiception  not  absolutely  demonstrated ;  but 
in  the  first  case  it  is  regarded  as  corresponding  with  the 
true  nature  of  things,  in  the  second  it  is  only  a  convenient 
means  for  the  mind  to  conceive  them.  The  difference  would 
be  nearly  that  existing  between  natural  and  artificial  classifi- 
cations. For  instance,  the  hypothesis  of  the  ether  is  still  only 
a  hj^pothesis,  since  that  substance  does  not  come  immediately 
under  experience ;  but  for  scientists  this  hypothesis,  in  pro- 
portion as  it  is  warranted  by  the  facts,  veritably  represents 
nature.  Its  objectivit}-  is  in  proportion  to  its  probability. 
Because  a  thing  is  not  absolutely  certain,  it  does  not  follow 
that  it  is  subjective,  but  merely  that  it  is  only  probable.     It 

1  Critique  of  the  Judgment,  §  Ixxiv. 


322  BOOK  II.   CHAPTER  II. 

is  the  probable,  not  the  subjective,  that  is  opposed  to  the 
certain.  In  the  second  case,  on  the  other  hand,  the  hypoth- 
esis is  only  a  means  fashioned  by  the  imagination  to  repre- 
sent the  phenomenon  to  be  explained.  I  can  employ  the 
hypothesis  of  attraction  without  attributing  to  it  any  objec- 
tive value,  but  simply  because  it  is  convenient  for  the  mind. 
I  may  imagine,  for  instance,  a  straight  cord  attached  to  the 
moon,  and  which  should  be  drawn  by  some  one  placed  in  the 
centre  of  the  earth.  Here  is  a  figure,  a  metaphor,  which 
serves  to  fix  my  ideas,  as  diagrams  drawn  on  the  board  fix 
the  ideas  of  the  geometrician. 

It  is  evident  from  these  distinctions  that  a  principle  may 
not  impose  itself  on  the  mind  with  the  same  necessity  as  the- 
principle  of  causality,  and  yet  not  be,  therefore,  an  exclusivel}' 
subjective  conception.  An  opinioyi  is  not  necessarily  2i  fiction. 
Even  if  finality  and  its  cause  in  a  divine  intelligence  should 
only  be  admitted  in  quality  of  opinions,  it  would  not  follow 
that  they  are  only  conventional  rules  for  the  use  of  the 
reason.  The  degree  of  their  probability  would  have  to  be 
determined  by  comparison  with  the  facts,  but  one  would  not 
thereby  be  warranted  to  transform  them  into  figurative  sym- 
bols having  no  relation  to  reality. 

What  we  grant  to  Kant,  as  we  have  proved  it  in  our  first 
part,  is  that  finality  is  not  a  constitutive  principle,  like  the 
principle  of  causality .  It  is  not  a  principle  inherent  in  the 
human  mind,  and  applicable  in  a  necessary  and  universal 
manner,  like  the  principle  of  causality  itself.  It  is  an  induc- 
tion resulting  from  analogy.  No  more  has  it  the  certainty 
that  experiment  and  calculation  can  give ;  it  is  a  hypothesis, 
a  doctrine,  an  opinion ;  it  is  neither  a  theorem,  an  axiom,  nor 
a  fact.  On  this  account  it  may  be  granted  that  there  is 
something  subjective  in  this  doctrine  —  namely,  the  part  that 
is  insusceptible  of  demonstration  and  verification,  and  also 
the  unknown  j)art  that  goes  on  alwaj^s  increasing  in  pro- 
portinn  as  we  approach  the  very  source  of  the  creative  activ- 
ity.    But  then,  again,  the  same  doctrine  is  objective  where  it 


SUBJECTIVE   FINALITY.  323 

represents  facts ;  it  is  real  on  the  same  ground  as  all  induc- 
tion that  rises  from  what  is  seen  to  what  is  not  seen.  Such 
is  the  induction  that  makes  us  believe  in  the  intelligence  of 
our  fellows.  No  one  will  maintain,  doubtless,  that  this  belief 
is  a  constitutive  principle  of  the  human  reason,  and  still  it 
will  not  be  concluded  that  it  is  only  a  regulative  principle 
and  a  symbolic  fiction.  There  is  here,  then,  a  medium  that 
Kant  has  not  sufficiently  distinguished. 

Besides,  we  must  not  forget  the  fundamental  distinction 
made  at  the  beginning  of  this  book  between  the  finality  of 
nature  and  the  first  cause  of  that  finality.  It  is  one  thing 
to  say  that  nature  has  ends ;  it  is  another  to  say  that  the 
cause  of  this  nature  is  a  mind  that  has  co-ordinated  it  accord- 
ing to  ends.  The  hypothesis  of  subjectivity  can  be  applied 
either  to  the  first  or  the  second  of  these  two  propositions.  It 
may  be  maictained  either  that  the  ends  of  nature  are  only 
appearances,  or  that,  these  ends  being  admitted  as  real,  it  is 
only  the  hypothesis  of  an  intelligent  cause  that  is  a  mere 
symbol,  a  mere  regulative  maxim  of  the  mind.  But  Kant 
has  never  clearly  explained  himself  regarding  this  difficulty. 
Sometimes  he  distinguishes  the  two  questions,  and  only  applies 
his  subjectivism  to  the  second  hypothesis ;  sometimes,  on  the 
other  hand,  he  seems  to  involve  them  both  in  it,  —  in  a  word, 
what  he  calls  subjective  is  sometimes  finality  in  general, 
sometimes  intentionality.  Reserving  this  second  question  for 
discussion  afterwards,  let  it  suffice  us  to  say  with  Trendelen- 
burg,^ that  if  finality  were  a  purely  subjective  hypothesis,  it 

1  The  Kantian  hypothesis  of  the  subjectivity  of  final  causes  has  been  dis- 
cussed by  the  learned  logician  Trendelenburg  {Logische  Untersuchimgen,  t.  ii. 
p.  47  et  seq.)  with  great  force,  and  we  think  wo  ought  here  to  sum  up  his  argu- 
ment. 

1st,  Kant  reasons  as  if  nothing  that  was  subjective  could  be  objective,  and 
vice  versa  :  he  Las  no  thought  of  discussing  the  hypothesis  according  to  which 
something  might  be  at  once  subjective  and  objective.  It  is  not  enough  that  a 
principle  is  not  derived  from  experience  for  it  not  to  have  an  objective  reality. 

2d,  If  finality  is  a  principle  only  regulative,  but  not  constitutive,  it  signifies 
nothing;  this  principle  is  no  more  even  a  rule.  A  rule  of  arithmetic  or  gram- 
mar is  constitutive,  conformable  to  the  thing  itself;  otherwise  what  would  it 
signify  ?    But,  it  will  be  said,  there  are  rules  —  as  in  grammar  the  rules  of  the 


i 


324 


BOOK  II.  CHAPTER  II. 


would  answer  no  purpose,  and  it  would  be  quite  as  well  to 
dispense  with  it. 

The  doctrine  of  the  subjectivity  of  final  causes  could  have 
no  solidity  if  it  were  not  attached  to  the  general  principle  of 
subjectivism,  —  that  is,  the  hypothesis  that  makes  of  all  the 
laws  of  nature  principles  of  the  human  mind;  but  it  would 
be  passing  beyond  our  subject  to  enter  on  the  question  of 
the  objective  value  of  our  knowledge.  It  is  enough  for  us  to- 
have  proved  that  it  is  not  more  subjective  than  the  others. 

genders  —  which  unite  what  perhaps  has  no  relation,  in  order  to  aid  the  mem- 
ory. Might  not  the  principle  of  final  causes  have  as  low  a  value  ?  Even  in. 
this  case,  the  rules  of  the  genders  say  something  on  the  nature  of  the  object 
itself.  If  the  principle  of  finality  has  no  objective  value,  it  is  only  a  fortuitous 
association  of  ideas. 

3d,  Why  does  Kant  admit  that  finality  is  a  principle  more  which  we  have 
need  of  to  subject  the  phenomena  to  rules,  when  mechanism  no  longer  suffices 
to  explain  them  ?  This  principle  more  is  a  singular  acquisition.  A  principle 
ought  to  simplify;  that  of  finality  only  brings  confusion,  since  it  employs  an 
interpretation  of  the  phenomena  absolutely  contrary  to  the  principle  of  the- 
efficient  cause.  If  this  contradiction  has  no  serious  inconveniences  because  the 
principle  of  finality  is  purely  subjective,  then  that  principle  has  no  more  value 
than  the  alphabetical  order  followed  in  dictionaries,  or  any  other  artificial 
classification. 

4th,  Kant  is  wrong  to  compare  the  employment  of  the  principle  of  finality  to- 
that  of  the  principle  of  the  absolute,  which  also  is  to  him  only  regulative  with- 
out being  constitutive.  The  principle  of  the  absolute  (das  Unbedingte)  jirevents- 
lis  from  stopping  at  the  particular  and  the  relative;  it  pushes  us  always  for- 
ward, and  excites  the  inactivity  of  the  reason,  but  it  leaves  it  in  the  same 
domain,  in  that  of  the  efiicient  cause.  The  principle  of  finality,  on  the  con- 
trary, does  not  push  us  in  the  direction  of  the  efiicient  cause;  it  leads  us  en- 
tirely to  reverse  the  order  of  the  facts.  This  reversal  can  only  be  called  a  rule 
so  far  as  it  leads  to  the  truth.  If  finality  is  not  in  things,  it  only  leads  our 
mind  astray  and  distorts  reality. 

5th,  In  line,  what  is  the  relation  of  the  principle  of  finality  to  the  other  sub- 
jective elements  of  Kant's  philosophy  ?  If  finality  were  a  necessary  form  of 
our  knowledge,  as  space  and  time  are  the  necessary  forms  of  sense-intuition,  all 
things  would  appear  to  us  in  the  relation  of  means  and  end.  But  no;  accord- 
ing to  Kant,  the  help  of  finality  is  called  in  when  the  explanation  by  the  effi- 
cient cause  no  longer  sufiices;  it  is  the  object  itself  that  forces  the  mind  to 
quit  the  road  it  was  following.  It  is,  then,  the  object  that  determines  when  we 
must  apply  the  purebj  subjective 'pvincii'ile  of  finality.  —  This  last  objection  is 
borrowed  from  Herbart.  '  How  is  it,'  says  the  latter,  '  that  the  convenience  of 
the  arrangements  of  nature  is  only  made  entirelj'  evident  in  certain  cases; 
that  very  often  this  convenience  appears  doubtful  to  us;  in  fine,  that  nature 
often  offers  us  a  certain  mechanical  regularity,  or  even  simple  facts,  of  which 
it  is  impossible  for  us  to  give  an  account  ?  If  the  idea  of  convenience  were  a 
necessary  form  of  the  mind,  it  ought  to  admit  of  being  applied  to  all  things, 
like  the  form  of  time  and  space  (or  even  the  principle  of  the  absolute) '  {EiU' 
leiiuny  in  die  Philosophie,  §  132). 


SUBJECTIVE   FINALITY.  325 

It  is  true  or  false,  certain  or  doubtful,  probable  or  improbable, 
like  all  that  is  discussed  ;  but  in  proportion  as  it  is  established 
and  demonstrated,  it  is  as  objective  as  any  other  truth.  Is  it 
the  same  when,  passing  from  finality  to  its  cause,  and  from 
nature  to  God,  we  infer  an  intentional  cause  ?  We  shall  see 
this  farther  on. 

There  is  yet  a  kind  of  suhjectivist  finalism  which  we  find  in 
one  of  the  most  distinguished  of  contemporary  philosophers, 
whose  name  we  have  already  several  times  met  with  in  these 
studies,  M.  Lachelier.  He  has  thought  proper  to  found  the 
law  of  final  causes  not  on  mind,  but  on  feeling.  According 
to  him,  the  law  of  efficient  causes,  which,  he  says,  '  is  reducible 
to  the  connection  of  motions,'  is  essential  to  the  mind ;  thought 
cannot  deny  it  without  destroying  itself.  But  feeling  has  its 
exigencies  as  well  as  the  mind.  '  A  world  in  which  motion, 
without  ceasing  to  obey  its  own  laws,  should  no  longer  form 
any  synthesis,  or  should  only  form  discordant  syntheses  that 
would  destroy  each  other,  such  a  world  would  not,  perhaps, 
be  less  conformable  than  ours  to  the  exigencies  of  thought,^ 
but  it  would  be  far  from  satisfying  those  of  our  feeling,  for 
in  the  former  case  it  would  leave  it  absolutely  void,  and  in 
the  latter  would  only  cause  it  painful  modifications.'  ^  How- 
ever, the  author  acknowledges  that  this  is  a  very  insufficient 
proof;  for  why  should  nature  be  obliged  to  satisfy  our 
faculties?  Would  not  affirming  it  a  priori  be  to  assume 
precisely  what  is  in  question  —  namely,  that  nature  has  an 
end?  How,  then,  could  feeling  impose  on  things  a  law  not 
essential  to  them  ? 

The  way  the  author  employs  to  explain  his  theory  is  as 
follows :  It  is  not  only  the  interest  of  sensation,  but  of 
thought  itself,  that  requires  the  law  of  final  causes.  '  Because 
this  law  especially  concerns  feeling,  it  by  no  means  follows 
that  it  is  foreign  to  the  essence  of  thought ;  and  we  do  not 

1  This  is  a  very  great  concession.  Plato,  in  the  Tlieatetus,  seems  to  believe 
the  contrary.  In  fact,  if  a  thing  is  destroyed  as  soon  as  formed,  how  can  wa 
think  it  V 

2  Fondement  de  I'mduction,  p.  83. 


•826 


BOOK  II.   CHAPTER   II. 


abandon  the  proof  that  thought  itself  supposes  the  existence 
of  this  hiw.'  1  Thus  after  having  introduced  feeling,  the 
author  abandons  it  and  speaks  of  it  no  more,  and  reverts  from 
it  to  the  necessities  of  thought.  Since  feeling  goes  for  noth- 
ing, what  need  was  there  to  speak  of  it  ?  Will  it  be  said  that 
it  is  not  the  bare  mind  by  itself  that  needs  final  causes,  but 
the  mind  combined  with  feeling?  This  is  merely  saying 
that  it  finds  its  pleasure  in  it ;  but  the  preceding  objection 
reappears  as  strongly :  Why  should  things  correspond  to  the 
necessities  of  our  feeling?  If  it  were  only  a  question  of 
some  very  rare  cases  of  wonderful  adaptation,  it  might  be 
maintained  that  it  is,  in  fact,  a  lively  fancy  of  our  mind, 
against  which  we  do  not  attempt  to  strive,  to  consider  these 
phenomena  as  the  work  of  an  artist ;  and  the  most  decided 
anti-finalists  in  the  theoretic  order  do  not  refuse  themselves 
this  pleasure  in  the  joy  of  admiration  and  enthusiasm.  One 
can  see  that  a  man  might  say  in  such  cases:  I  don't  care 
whether  it  is  really  so ;  I  can  only  enjoy  on  condition  that 
it  is  so;  do  not  take  away  my  dream — you  would  take 
away  my  happiness.  But  the  author  sees  finality  not  only 
in  such  cases,  but  everywhere  in  all  that  is  ordered,  in  all 
that  presents  a  certain  unity  —  that  is,  in  the  whole  universe  ; 
nay,  more,  it  is  still  finality,  according  to  him,  that  constitutes 
'  the  existence  '  and  '  reality  '  of  phenomena.^  Then  how  can 
we  conceive  that  our  feeling  could  thus  command  the  order 
of  things  ?  and  how  should  the  laws  of  motion,  in  order  to 
please  our  mind,  constrain  themselves  to  form  composite  and 
harmonious  wholes  ? 

The  author  proves  that  the  law  of  thought  is  unity.  But  he 
says  there  are  two  sorts  of  unity ;  the  one  a  unity  of  necessity, 
the  other  a  unity  of  convenience  and  harmony.  But  if  the 
mechanism  of  the  universe  strictly  satisfies  the  first  of  these 
two  unities,  it  is  further  necessary,  to  satisfy  the  second,  that 
the  universe  be  an  organism.    Thus,  regarded  as  pure  thought, 


1  Fondemcnt  de  I'induction,  p.  85. 

2  Ibid.  p.  85  et  seq. 


SUBJECTIVE  FINALITY.  327 

the  mind  imposes  on  phenomena  the  law  of  mechanism  ;  while, 
as  mingled  with  feeling,  it  imposes  on  them  the  law  of  finality. 
We  cannot  comprehend  this  iheoiy.  We  would  admit  it 
were  we  told :  The  phenomena  are  what  they  are,  and  we 
can  effect  no  change  in  them ;  perhaps  they  are  exclusively 
mechanical.  But  as  we  see  in  them  order  which  we  cannot 
explain,  we  are  pleased  to  suppose  a  final  cause.  We  abandon 
ourselves  to  this  hypothesis,  be  it  true  or  false,  because  it  is 
agreeable  and  convenient  to  us.  But  this  is  not  what  the 
author  means.  He  seems  to  believe  that  motion  alone  has  no 
reason  to  form  any  regular  compositions,  or  even  any  compo- 
sitions at  all ;  and  we  quoted  from  him  above  a  beautiful  pas- 
sage, in  which  he  expresses  himself  very  strongly  to  this  effect.^ 
The  laws  of  motion  do  not,  then,  suffice  to  explain  the  harmony 
of  the  universe;  there  is  another  principle.  But,  then,  what 
now  becomes  of  your  feeling?  What  does  it  signify  whether 
that  pleases  you  or  not  ?  It  is,  because  it  is,  and  not  because 
it  is  agreeable  to  you  that  it  should  be.  It  may  be  maintained, 
if  you  will,  in  an  exaggerated  final-causality,  that  God  has 
only  made  the  world  to  please  us ;  that  He  has  illumined  the 
suns  and  the  stars  that  we  might  contemplate  them.  But  to 
give  as  a  proof  of  final  causes  what  is  only  an  excessive  and 
exclusive  consequence  of  them,  is  to  invert  the  order  of  ideas. 
Will  it  be  said  that  by  feeling  must  be  understood  not 
human  feeling,  but  feeling  in  general,  and  by  thought  not 
human  thought,  but  thought  in  general?  In  this  sense,  it 
might  be  maintained  that  thought  in  the  pure  state  is  mani- 
fested in  the  universe  by  mechanism,  and  that,  connected, 
with  feeling,  it  is  manifested  in  it  by  finality.  But  then  the 
question  would  no  longer  be  regarding  the  faculty  that  should 
give  us  the  principle  of  ends.,  but  regarding  the  cause  of  the 
ends  themselves,  so  far  as  previously  granted  as  object  of 
experience ;  from  critical  teleology  one  would  pass  without 
notice  to  dogmatic  teleology.     One  would  thus  assume  what 

1  See  above,  Book  i.  chap.  vi.  p.  207  ;    '  The  world  of  Epicurus  before  the 
concourse  of  the  atoms  .  .  .' 


328  BOOK  II.  CHAPTER  II. 

is  in  question  —  namely,  the  objective  validity  of  the  principle 
of  finality.  In  fine,  is  it  meant*  that  human  feeling  and  feel- 
ing in  general  are  but  one,  and  that  nature  being  only  the 
play  of  our  mind,  identical  with  mind  in  general,  we  are 
warranted  to  conclude  from  the  one  to  the  other?  If,  then, 
it  is  a  necessity  of  our  thought  and  our  feeling  to  conceive 
things  as  ordered,  that  is  true  of  all  thought  and  all  feeling, 
and  nature,  having  no  objective  existence  apart  from  the 
mind  that  thinks  and  the  feeling  that  enjoys  it,  is  forced,  in 
order  to  be  something,  to  conform  itself  to  the  exigencies  of 
both.  If  this  be  so,  we  only  perceive  in  it  a  very  complicated 
and  entangled  way  of  expressing  what  we  here  maintain,  that 
finality  is  objective  and  not  subjective ;  for  it  will  always  be 
permissible  to  distinguish  the  subjective  mind  as  circum- 
scribed within  the  limits  of  the  individual  consciousness  or 
the  human  consciousness,  and  the  objective  mind  that 
animates  all  other  men  apart  from  me,  before  me,  after  me, 
and  that  equally  animates  all  other  beings.  That  nature 
exists  in  virtue  of  the  laws  of  this  objective  mind  is  denied 
by  none  of  those  who  recognise  finality  in  nature ;  but  as  it 
derives  its  laws  from  this  objective  mind,  it  is  it  that  is 
imposed  on  our  thought  and  feeling  (that  is,  on  the  only 
thought  and  feeling  we  directly  know) ;  it  is  not  we  that 
impose  it  on  nature. 

In  a  word,  it  is  either  admitted  that  mechanism  absolutely 
cannot,  despite  the  theory  of  fortunate  chances,  produce  an 
ordered  whole,  —  hence,  as  the  world  in  reality  has  hitherto 
always  presented  to  us  a  whole  of  this  kind,  it  must  be 
acknowledged  that  there  is  effectively  and  objectively  a  prin- 
ciple of  finality  in  the  universe,  and  thought,  united  or  not 
to  feeling,  can  only  recognise  it,  and  not  constitute  it,  —  or 
else,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  maintained  that  it  is  thought 
joined  to  feeling  that  carries  with  it  the  principle  of  finality. 
Then  how  can  and  ought  nature  to  agree  with  thought,  so  as 
to  produce  for  its  pleasure  the  innumerable  prodigies  of  adap- 
tation of  which  the  universe  is  composed  ?     And  to  say  that 


IMMANENT   FINALITY.  32? 

nature  is  ourselves,  is  to  pass  perpetually  from  the  subjective 
to  the  objective  sense,  according  to  the  need  of  the  moment, 
by  a  perpetual  succession  of  equivocations,  in  which  all  dis- 
tinct thought  is  swallowed  up. 

§  2.  Immanent  Finality. 

If,  on  the  one  hand,  led  by  the  general  tendencies  of  his 
critical  philosophy,  Kant  seems  to  conclude  for  the  doctrine 
of  the  subjectivity  of  final  causes,  on  the  other,  by  certain 
aspects  of  his  theory,  he  opens  the  way  again  to  a  very  dif- 
ferent and  more  profound  doctrine,  which,  while  objectiviz- 
ing  the  final  cause,  like  the  earlier  pliilosophy,  gives  it  a  new 
form  and  an  entirely  different  signification.  Here  it  is 
proper  to  revert  to  a  reservation  made  by  Kant  in  the  Pure 
Reason^  and  already  indicated  above,^  but  too  important  in 
its  consequences  not  to  be  expressly  mentioned. 

'  We  will  not  here  dispute  with  natural  reason  on  this 
argument,  in  wliich,  founding  on  the  analogy  of  some  pro- 
ductions of  nature  with  the  products  of  human  art  (our 
machines,  vessels,  watches),  it  concludes  that  nature  must 
have  as  its  principle  a  causality  of  the  same  kind.  .  .  .  Per- 
haps this  reasoning  would  not  bear  strict  examination  by  the 
transcendental  criticism.'  ^ 

The  celebrated  Dr.  Strauss,  in  his  Christian  Dogmatic,  re- 
produces this  difficulty.  '  This  proof,'  he  says, '  is  founded  on 
the  analogy  of  certain  products  of  nature  with  the  works 
of  art ;  the  organism  resembles  a  clock,  the  eye  a  telescope, 
the  body  of  a  fish  a  vessel,  etc.  But  a  clock,  a  telescope, 
etc.  are  the  works  of  a  wisdom  that  has  adapted  the  means 
to  the  end ;  therefore  the  products  of  all  nature  are  the 
work  of  an  intelligence  which  is  apart  from  it.  —  But  first, 
ivhy  should  this  intelligence  be  apart  from  nature?  What  con- 
strains us  to  go  out  of  nature  ?     Therefore  the  analogy  is  only 

1  See  the  previous  chapter,  p.  302. 

2  Critique  of  Pare  Reason,  '  Transc.  dialect.'  Book  ii.  chap.  iii.  §  iii. 


330  BOOK  II.  CHAPTER  II. 

superficial.  The  pieces  of  a  machine,  of  a  work  of  human 
industry,  remain  strangers  to  each  other ;  motion  and  unity 
are  impressed  on  them  from  without.  On  the  other  hand,  in 
the  organism  each  part  is  in  intimate,  continual  communica- 
tion with  the  others ;  they  all  serve  each  other  as  end  and 
means.  There  is  just  this  difference  between  the  works  of 
human  industry  and  those  of  nature,  that  the  artist  is  out- 
side the  former,  and  forms  the  matter  from  without  inwards ; 
while  he  is  within  the  latter,  and  forms  the  matter  from 
within  outwards.     Life  is  the  end  that  realizes  itself'  ^ 

The  knot  of  the  difficulty,  as  is  evident  from  this  objection, 
is  in  the  comparison  of  the  works  of  art  and  those  of  nature. 
While  it  is  only  a  question  of  finality,  analogy  can  go  so  far ; 
but  when  it  concerns  the  first  cause  of  finality,  analogy 
becomes  inexact  and  insufl&cient,  for  this  reason,  that  human 
industry  supposes  a  pre-existing  matter,  which  it  turns  from 
its  ends  to  appropriate  to  its  own,  while  nature  works  in 
nothing  but  itself,  and  has  no  need  to  pass  beyond  itself  to 
realize  its  ends.  In  other  words,  the  industry  of  man  is 
external^  that  of  nature  is  internal. 

Aristotle  had  already  noticed  this  difference  between  nature 
and  art  —  nature  acting  from  within,  and  art  from  without.^ 
Kant  has  made  the  distinction  deeper. 

'  In  a  watch,'  he  says,  '  one  part  is  an  instrument  that  serves 
to  move  others ;  but  no  wheel  is  the  efiicient  cause  of  the 
production  of  the  others.  One  part  exists  for  the  sake  of 
another,  and  not  hy  the  latter.  Therefore,  also,  the  productive 
cause  of  these  parts  and  of  their  forms  does  not  reside  in  the 
nature  (of  this  matter),  but  apart  from  it,  in  a  being  capable 
of  acting  according  to  the  idea  of  a  whole  possible  by  its 
causality.     And  as  in  the  machine  one  wheel  does  not  pro- 

1  Strauss,  Die  ChvistUche  Glaubenslehre ,  1840,  t.  i.  p.  385.  Hegel  says  like- 
wise: 'No  doubt  there  is  a  wonderful  agreement  between  the  functions  of 
different  organs  ;  but  does  this  harmony  require  another  being  outside  the  organ- 
ism? ' —  Lessons  on  the  Proofs  of  the  Existence  of  God,  p.  458. 

2  Aristotle,  Phys.  lib.  ii.  8  (Berlin  ed.,  199,  b.  28) :   el  yap  t^^v  e*-  t<Z  (OAo.  rj 

vavirrjyLKrj,  ojaoito;   civ  (^vcret   eTroi'ti. 


IMMANENT  FINALITY.  331 

diice  another,  for  a  stronger  reason  one  machine  doetJ  not 
produce  others,  by  employing  for  this  other  matter  (which  it 
should  organize).  Besides,  it  does  not  replace  of  itself  the 
lost  parts ;  it  does  not  repair  the  faults  of  the  original  con- 
struction by  the  aid  of  the  other  parts ;  it  does  not  restore 
itself  when  disorder  has  entered  it,  —  all  which  things,  on 
the  other  hand,  we  may  meet  with  in  an  organized  being.  An 
organized  being  is  not,  then,  a  mere  machine,  having  onl}' 
the  motive  force  ;  it  possesses  in  it  o, formative  virtue,  and  com- 
municates it  to  materials  that  have  it  not,  by  organizing 
them ;  and  this  formative  virtue,  which  propagates  itself, 
cannot  be  explained  by  the  motive  force  alone  (by  mechan- 
ism).'^ 

In  a  word,  the  works  of  nature  are  distinguished  from  the 
works  of  art  by  the  three  following  differences: — 1st,  The 
organized  being  has  a  formative  virtue  :  the  germ  succes- 
sively assimilates  all  the  particles  it  borrows  from  the  exter- 
nal world  ;  2d,  It  has  a  reparative  virtue  :  when  it  is  injured 
it  repairs  itself  (in  this  sense  it  is  said  that  nature  is  the  best 
physician ;  it  is  even  known  that  after  wounds  and  even 
mutilations  the  different  parts  are  often  spontaneously  repro- 
duced) :  3d,  In  fine,  it  has  a  reproductive  virtue,  for  the 
species  perpetuate  themselves  by  the  law  of  generation. 

These  differences  are  so  visible  that  they  have  never 
escaped  the  observers  of  nature  and  the  defenders  of  final 
causes.  'Let  us  confine  ourselves,'  says  Fdnelon,  'to  the 
animal  machine.  There  are  three  things  in  it  that  cannot  be 
too  much  admired :  1st,  It  has  in  itself  wherewith  to  defend 
itself  against  those  that  would  attack  and  destroy  it ;  2d,  It 
has  wherewith  to  renew  itself  by  food ;  3d,  It  has  wherewith 
to  perpetuate  its  species  by  generation.  What  would  be 
thought  of  a  machine  that  should  flee  to  purpose,  that 
should  recoil,  defend  itself,  and  escape  in  order  to  preserve 
itself,  when  it  was  sought  to  break  it  ?  What  is  more  beauti- 
ful than  a  machine  that  repairs  and  renews  itself  incessantly  ? 

1  Critique  of  the  Judgment,  §  Ixiv. 


332  BOOK  II.   CHAPTER  II. 

What  would  be  said  of  a  watchmaker  who  could  make  watches 
spontaneously  producing  others  without  end,  so  that  the  two 
first  watches  should  be  sufficient  to  multiply  and  perpetuate 
the  species  on  the  earth  ?  '  ^ 

It  is  evident  that  Fenelon  mentions  nearly  the  same  charac- 
teristic differences  as  Kant ;  only,  in  place  of  seeing  therein  a 
difficulty,  he  makes  use  of  them  as  an  a  fortiori.  From  these 
differences  between  nature  and  art  he  concludes  not  that  the 
cause  of  nature  is  not  an  art,  but  rather  that  it  is  an  art  very 
superior  to  ours.  According  to  Kant,  the  organization  of 
nature  has  nothing  analogous  with  any  of  the  causalities  we 
know,  and  it  cannot  be  conceived  and  explained  exactly  by 
analogy  with  human  art.  Fenelon  is  right  in  saying  that  the 
art  of  nature  is  superior  to  human  art.  But  are  we  at  liberty 
to  conclude  from  the  one  to  the  other  ?  Is  not  nature  rather 
an  analogue  of  life  than  an  analogue  of  art  ?  Far  from  being 
like  human  intelligence,  it  would  be  the  very  principle  from 
which  human  intelligence  is  itself  derived,  and  the  industry 
of  man  would  only  be  a  particular  and  entirely  relative  case 
of  this  universal  art. 

This  distinction  of  Kant  between  nature  and  art  attaches 
to  another  profound  theory  of  the  same  thinker,  which  has 
had  the  greatest  influence  on  the  further  development  of 
German  philosophy.  I  mean  the  theory  of  internal  finality, 
which  we  have  often  mentioned,  but  to  which  it  is  necessary 
to  revert. 

According  to  Kant,  there  are  two  species  of  finality  — 
iriternal  and  external  or  relative. 

'  Finality  purely  external  —  that  is,  the  utility  of  one  thing 
for  another  —  is  never  more  than  relative,'  and  'only  exists 
accidentally  in  the  thing  to  which  it  is  attributed.'  ^  In  fact, 
this  finality  always  supposes  something  else  than  itself,  and  is 
always  hypothetical.  If  the  sand  of  the  sea  is  fittest  for  the 
growth  of  pines,  this  property  can  only  be  considered  as  au 

1  Fenelon,  Traitd  dc  I'existence  de  Dieu,  Book  i.  chap.  ii. 

2  Critique  of  the  Judgment,  §  Ixii. 


IMMANENT  FINALITY.  333 

end  of  iicature  by  supposing  that  pines  themselves  are  ends  of 
nature,  —  that  is,  that  it  has  resolved  beforehand  that  there 
shall  be  pines.  In  this  sort  of  finality  things  are  never 
considered  but  as  means,  but  these  means  can  only  be  such 
if  there  are  beings  that  are  considered  immediately  and  in 
themselves  as  ends.  But  these  beings  are  precisely  those 
that  show  an  internal  finality.  The  first,  then,  are  only  ends 
relatively  to  the  second,  and  the  latter  alone  can  afford  room 
for  an  absolute  teleological  judgment. 

This  profound  distinction  of  Kant  has  some  analog}'  with 
that  which  he  sets  up  in  his  ethics  between  subjective  and 
objective  ends,  whence  arise  two  sorts  of  imperatives  —  the 
hy])othetical  and  the  categorical.  Subjective  ends  are  those 
that  are  always  subordinated  to  other  ends,  and  which  conse- 
quently are  only  means,  and  only  afford  room  for  conditional 
rules  :  If  you  wish  to  be  rich,  be  economical.  Objective  ends 
are  absolute,  and  afford  room  for  absolute  precepts :  Be  sin- 
cere, whether  it  please  you  or  not.  So  here  external  finality 
is  hypothetical.  Reindeer  in  northern  lands  are  food  destined 
for  a  man,  if  it  be  supposed  that  there  must  be  men  in  those 
countries.  But  why  should  that  be  necessary  ?  On  the  other 
hand,  in  order  that  an  object  of  nature  may  be  considered 
immediately  as  an  end,  and  afford  room  for  an  absolute  teleo- 
logical judgment,  we  must,  without  leaving  that  object,  and 
without  needing  to  subordinate  it  to  another,  remark  in  it 
that  '  the  possibility  of  the  form  could  not  be  derived,  from 
the  simple  laws  of  nature,'  that  '  this  form  is  contingent  on 
the  eyes  of  reason,'  and  '  does  not  seem  possible  but  by  it '  — 
in  a  word,  that  it  is  such  that  '  the  whole  contains  the  possi' 
bility  of  the  parts.''  ^ 

Such,  in  the  first  place,  is  the  character  common  to  every 
end,  the  works  of  art  as  well  as  those  of  nature.  But  for  a 
work  of  nature  something  more  is  necessary  —  namely,  '  that 
it  be  at  once  its  own  cause  and  effect ;  ^  that  is,  as  we  hav(;  seen, 
that  it  be  able  to  organize,  repair,  and  reproduce  itself.    '  Ti  a 

1  Critique  of  the  Judgment,  §  Ixiii.  2  /Jsc?. 


334  BOOK  II.   CHAPTER  II. 

leaves  of  the  tree  are  the  products  of  the  tree,  but  they  also, 
in  their  turn,  preserve  it.'  Consequently,  an  end  of  nature  is 
a  production  in  which  '  all  the  parts  are  reciprocally  ends  and 
means.'  ^     Such  is  the  character  of  internal  finality. 

We  see  here  one  of  the  sources  of  all  the  later  German 
philosophy.  The  internal  finality  of  this  philosopher  became 
the  immanent  finality  of  the  Hegelian  school.^  Instead  of 
conceiving  a  supreme  cause,  supra-mundane,  constructing 
works  of  art,  as  man  makes  houses  and  tools  (which  would 
seem  to  suppose  a  pre-existing  matter),  the  entire  German 
pantheism  has  conceived  an  intra-mundane  cause,  realizing 
its  end  in  itself.  The  physical  theology  of  the  18th  centuiy, 
according  to  the  Hegelians,  was  exclusively  founded  on  ex- 
ternal finalit}^  —  that  is,  on  utility,  —  and  conceived  all  the 
objects  of  nature  as  fabricated  for  an  external  end.  The  idea 
that  was  formed  of  nature  did  not  much  differ  from  that  of  the 
Epicureans  —  namely,  that  therein  all  was  mechanical,  and 
that  there  was  nothing  internal  in  the  universe.  In  place  of 
chance,  an  external  motive  cause  was  brought  in,  a  deus  ex 
machind.  But  this  cause  only  produced  inert  works,  none 
of  which  was  in  itself  a  source  of  action,  and  whose  only  end 
was  to  serve  for  something  else  than  themselves.  However, 
Leibnitz  had  already,  by  his  notion  of  force,  restored  the 
principle  of  an  internal  activity  of  things ;  the  internal  final- 
ity of  Kant  completed  the  same  idea.  But  then,  if  things  are 
no  longer  inert  blocks,  moved  from  without,  but  all  living, 
animated  within,  the  world  itself  ought  no  longer  to  be  con- 
ceived as  an  inert  and  dead  mass,  but  as  a  veritable  whole,  as 
an  organism. 

Hegel's  doctrine  on  final  causes  may  be  reduced  to  these 
three  fundamental  points  :  — 

1st,  There  are  final  causes  in  nature,  and  even  all  is  final 
cause.     The  domain  of  efficient  causes  is  that  of  blind  neces- 

1  Critique  of  the  Judgment,  §  Ixv. 

2  '  Kant,'  says  Hegel,  '  in  bringing  to  light  the  internal  conformitij  of  things 
to  their  end,  has  called  attention  to  the  intimate  nature  of  the  idea,  and,  above 
all,  to  the  idea  of  life.'  —  Logic,  §  204. 


IMMANENT   FINALITY.  335 

Bity.  Tlie  final  cause  is  the  sole  veritable  cause,  for  it  alone 
has  in  itself  the  reason  of  its  determinations.^ 

2cl,  It  is  not  necessary  to  conceive  the  final  cause  in  the 
form  that  it  has  in  consciousness,  —  that  is,  as  an  anticipated 
representation  of  the  end.  The  ends  that  are  in  nature  are 
not  like  the  ends  we  realize,  which  are  the  result  of  choice, 
foresight,  and  voluntary  activity.  There  are  two  ways  of  at- 
taining an  end,  —  the  one,  of  which  we  find  an  example  in 
human  industry ;  the  other,  which  is  rational,  without  being 
conscious  and  reflective,  and  which  is  the  activity  of  nature.^ 

3d,  The  finality  of  nature  is  an  immanent,  internal  finality. 
It  is  not,  as  in  the  works  of  human  industry,  an  external 
cause  that  produces  certain  means  to  attain  an  end  that  is 
foreign  to  them,  —  the  cause,  the  means,  and  the  end  consti- 
tuting three  terms  separated  from  each  other.  In  nature 
all  is  united  in  the  same  principle  —  the  end  realizes  itself. 
The  cause  attains  its  end  by  self-development.  The  image 
of  this  development  is  in  the  seed  that  contains  the  whole 
being  that  it  has  to  realize.  It  attains  its  end  without  going 
outside  itself.  It  may  be  said  of  entire  nature  what  Kant 
said  of  the  organized  being,  that  in  it  everything  is  recipro- 
cally end  and  means.  Internal  finality  thus  becomes  imma- 
nent finality.^ 


1  '  The  distinction  between  the  final  and  the  efficient  cause  is  of  the  utmost 
importance.  The  efficient  cause  belongs  to  the  sphere  of  blind  necessity,  and 
of  what  is  not  yet  developed  ;  it  appears  asjMssing  to  a  foreign  terminus,  and  as 
losing,  in  being  realized,  its  primitive  nature.  The  efficient  cause  is  only  a 
cause  virtually  and  for  us.  The  final  cause,  on  the  other  hand,  is  stated  as  con~ 
taining  in  itself  its  determination,  or  its  effect,  which,  in  the  efficient  cause, 
appears  as  a  foreign  term  ;  wherefore,  in  acting,  the  final  cause  does  not  go 
beyond  itself,  but  develops  within  itself,  and  is  at  the  end  what  it  was  at  the 
beginning,  and  in  its  primitive  state.  This  is  the  true  first  cause.'  —  Hegel, 
Logic,  Fr.  Tr.  t.  ii.  p.  321.  '  Because  the  mechanical  world  and  finality  both 
are,  it  does  not  follow  that  they  both  have  the  same  reality;  and  as  they  are 
opposed,  the  first  question  is,  Which  of  the  two  contains  the  truth  ?  But  as 
they  both  are,  a  more  precise  and  higher  question  is,  whether  there  be  not  a 
third  principle  that  forms  the  truth  of  both,  or  else  whether  one  of  them  does 
not  form  tlic  truth  of  the  other.  But  finality  has  been  here  set  forth  as  the 
truth  of  mechanism  and  chexmstry .'  —  Ihid.  ii.  p.  334. 

■■^  On  this  second  point  see  the  following  chapter. 

3  '  Finjiliry  is  not  external  to  nature,  it  is  immanent  in  it.    The  seed  virtually 


836  BOOK   II.   CHAPTER   II. 

We  have  no  difficulty  in  admitting,  for  our  part,  that 
internal  finality  is  likewise  immanent  finality,  but  on  con- 
dition that  the  second  term  shall  have  exactly  the  same 
sense  as  the  first,  and  shall  add  nothing  more  to  it ;  but 
from  this  immanent  finality  to  infer  an  immanent  cause 
of  finality,  is  to  put  into  the  conclusion  what  is  not  in 
the  premises,  for  it  is  saying  that  every  cause  that  pur- 
sues ends  spontaneously  and  internally  is,  therefore,  a  first 
cause. 

Let  us  remark,  besides,  that  the  opposition  of  transcendence 
and  hnmanence  is  very  far  from  being  so  absolute  in  reality 
as  it  appears  in  the  eyes  of  the  German  philosophers.  There 
is  no  doctrine  of  transcendence  but  implies  at  the  same  time 
some  presence  of  God  in  the  world,  and,  consequently,  some 
immanence.  There  is  no  doctrine  of  immanence  but  implies 
some  distinction  between  God  and  the  world,  and,  conse- 
quently, some  transcendence.  Absolute  transcendence  would 
be  such  a  separation  of  God  and  the  world  that  they  would 
no  longer  have  anything  in  common  —  that  God  could  not 
know  the  world,  nor  the  world  know  God.  Absolute  imma- 
nence would  be  such  an  identity  of  God  and  the  world  that 
the  cause  would  be  but  one  with  the  effect,  the  substance 
with  its  phenomena,  the  absolute  with  the  relative.  But 
there  is  no  example  in  philosophy  of  either  the  one  or  the 
other  of  these  conceptions.  Even  in  the  scholastic  theism, 
or  in  that  of  Descartes  and  Leibnitz,  whoever  will  fathom  the 
theory  of  the  divinus  concursus,  or  of  the  continued  creation, 
will  see  profound  traces  of  the  doctrine  of  immanence.  Con- 
versely, in  the  pantheism  of  Spinoza  or  Hegel,  whoever  will 
reflect  on  the  distinction  of  Natura  naturans  and  Natura 
naturata,  of  the  Idea  and  Nature,  will  clearly  recognise  a 
doctrine  of  transcendence. 

Thus  when  it  is  asked,  as  by  the  Hegelians,  whether  the 

contains  all  the  constituent  parts  of  the  plant  that  have  to  be  produced,  and  its 
development  is  only  directed  towards  preservation.  True  teleology  consists 
in  considering  nature  as  independent  in  its  proper  quality  .  .  .  '  —  Philosophy 
of  Nature,  §  245. 


IMMANENT   FINALITY.  337 

supreme  cause  is  within  or  outside  nature,  the  question  is 
badly  stated,  for  in  every  solution  the  cause  will  always  be 
at  once  within  and  outside  nature.  It  is  a  question  of  degree. 
But  it  is  true  that  the  physico-theological  proof  by  itself  does 
not  furnish  sufficient  data  to  fix  with  precision  the  degree  of 
distinction  between  the  cause  of  nature  and  nature  itself.  If, 
for  instance,  it  is  required  to  proceed  to  a  isubstantial  distinc- 
tioti,  whoever  comprehends  the  terms  of  a  philosophical  ques- 
tion will  allow  that  such  a  distinction  is  not  contained  in 
the  premises  of  the  argument  of  final  causes ;  but  no  more  is 
it  necessary  to  demand  it,  for  it  is  not  that  that  is  in  question. 
No  one  pretends  to  resolve  with  a  single  argument  all  the 
difficulties  of  philosophy,  and,  conversely,  one  ought  not  to 
require  it.  The  problem  of  transcendence  in  the  strict  sense 
of  the  word — that  is  to  say,  the  conflict  between  theism  and 
pantheism  —  cannot  be  decided  by  the  proof  of  final  causes.^ 
A  God  the  soul  of  the  world,  as  was  the  God  of  the  Stoics,  is, 
indeed,  in  no  way  excluded  by  the  proof  of  final  causes ;  but, 
even  on  this  hypothesis,  God  would  still  be  distinct  from  the 
world,  as  the  cause  from  its  effect,  and  this  distinction  suffices 
here. 

Even  in  the  philosophy  of  Hegel  there  is  a  profound  differ- 
euQe  between  things  and  their  cause  or  reason.  If  we  con- 
sider an  individual  organized  being,  Hegel  will  not  say  that 
the  cause  of  this  being  is  in  the  individual  itself  as  such. 
Certainly  not ;  it  is  in  the  idea  of  the  species.  This  idea,  so 
far  as  it  is  absolute  and  immanent,  is  very  distinct  from  the 
individual  that  manifests  it,  for  the  latter  passes  away,  while 
it  remains.  What  is  true  of  the  individual  is  true  of  the 
species.  No  species  is  its  own  cause,  nor  suffices  for  itself. 
The  cause  of  humanity  as  a  species  ought  to  be  sought  in  the 
universal  type  that  constitutes  the  animal  kingdom,  and  the 
cause  of  the  animal,  as  well  as  of  the  vegetable  kingdom, 
ought  to  be  sought  in  the  idea  of  life  in  general.     In  fine, 

1  The  true  point  of  debate  between  tlieism  and  pantheism  is  the  explana. 
tron  of  consciousness  and  the  ego. 


338  BOOK   II.  CHAPTER  II. 

vitality  in  its  turn  is  still  only  a  form  of  the  universal  prin- 
ciple which  manifests  itself  first  by  mechanism,  then  by 
chemistry,  then  by  organism,  and  finally  by  mind.  We  sliall 
thus  distinguish,  even  in  the  philosophj^  of  Hegel,  the  par- 
ticular beings  given  by  experience  from  the  internal  causes 
that  produce  them;  we  shall  distinguish  nature  and  idea. 
Since  nature  is  externalized  idea,^  it  clearly  follows  that  the 
one  of  these  terms  is  not  the  other.  For  it  may  always  be 
asked.  Why  did  not  the  idea  remain  quiet  ?  Why  did  it 
come  out  from  itself  ?  It  is  clear  that  that  is  a  new  mode  of 
existence  for  it,  and,  consequently,  even  in  the  philosophy 
of  Hegel,  the  supreme  cause  is  apart  from  nature.  It  is  at 
once  apart  and  within  ;  and  all  profound  theology  has  always 
taught  this. 

Is  it  true,  meanwhile,  that  the  theory  of  internal  finality, 
such  as  Kant  constituted  it,  excludes  all  transcendence  in 
the  first  cause,  and  absolutely  contradicts  what  Hegel  calls- 
jinite  theology^  —  that  is  to  say,  theism?  and,  conversely,  is 
theism  condemned,  as  he  maintains,  and  limited  to  external 
finality  ? 

These  are  very  arbitrary  views,  forced  consequences,  drawa. 

1  'The  absolute  liberty  of  the  idea  consists  in  this,  that  it  resolves  to pro- 
duce  itself  outside  as  nature.'  —  Philosophy  of  Nature,  §  244.  'The  absolute 
liberty  of  the  idea  consists  in  this,  that  it  decides  to  derive  freely  from  itself 
the  moment  of  its  particular  existence,  to  separate  from  itself, — in  a  word,  to 
place  itself  as  nature.'  —  Logic,  §  cliv. 

'  If  God  is  self-sufficient,  how  comes  He  to  produce  something  absolutely 
dissimilar?  The  divine  idea  just  consists  in  producing  itself  outside,  in  send- 
ing forth  the  other  from  itself,  and  in  then  resuming  it,  in  order  to  be  subjectiv- 
ity and  mind.'  —  Phil,  of  Nature,  §  247. 

'  Nature  being  the  idea  under  the  form  of  the  other,  it  is  not  only  external  in 
relation  to  the  idea  and  to  the  subjective  existence  of  the  idea  under  form  of 
mind,  it  is,  besides,  external  to  itself;  externality  constitutes  its  essential  character, 
its  nature'  —  Ibid. 

2  This  term,  finite  theology,  is  one  of  those  cleverly-chosen  expressions  by 
which  a  philosophical  school  finds  means  to  throw  back  on  an  adverse  school 
the  suspicion  and  reproach  by  which  it  is  itself  threatened.  If  there  is  a  finite 
theology,  it  would  seem  to  be  that  which  identifies  God  with  the  world,  and 
that  confounds  the  Absolute  Mind  with  human  philosopliy.  On  the  other 
hand,  a  doctrine  which,  wrongly  or  righth%  conceives  a  complete  and  perfect 
Absolute  apart  from  the  world,  and  only  sees  in  the  world  an  image,  reflec- 
tion, a  feeble  expression  of  God,  is  as  badly  as  possible  represented  by  the 
expression  finite  theology. 


IMMANENT  FINALITY.  339 

from  premises  that  do  not  contain  them.  External  finalitj-  is 
a  relative  and  subordinate  finality,  but  it  is  inseparably  con- 
nected with  internal  finality,  as  has  been  seen  above  ;  ^  it  is 
the  converse  of  it.  Hegel  himself  regards  it  as  we  do ;  for 
he  owns  that  finite  theology  rests  on  a  just  idea,  which  is, 
'  that  nature  has  not  its  end  in  itself.'  ^  But  the  theist  says 
no  more.  Finite  theology  is  by  no  means  bound  to  aliirni 
that  all  has  been  created  since  the  beginning  of  the  world  for 
the  use  of  man.  Descartes  and  Leibnitz  long  ago  repudiated  j 
that  doctrine.  But  transcendental  theology,  as  well  as  imma- ' 
nent,  is  entitled  to  say  that  the  different  degrees  of  nature 
are  steps  of  a  ladder  that  the  divine  thought  successively 
mounts  in  order  to  realize  itself,  and  that  the  lower  are  steps 
to  the  higher.  As  far  as  Aristotle  and  Hegel  admit  that  final 
causes  have  need  of  efficient,  to  the  same  extent  finite  the- 
ology will  admit  that  efficient  causes  are  made  for  final  causes. 
As  to  the  more  or  less  popular  forms  which  may  have  been 
employed  to  express  this  doctrine,  it  is  hardly  philosophical 
to  make  use  of  them  against  the  doctrine  itself,  for  it  is  in  its 
highest  expression,  and  not  in  its  most  superficial  meaning, 
that  it  must  be  taken.^ 

If  internal  finality  is  impossible  without  external,  conversely 
external  finality  is  only  a  relative  point  of  view,  which,  taken 
higher,  may  return  to  internal  finality.     In  effect,  instead  of 

1  See  above,  Book  i.  chap.  vi.  p.  267,  and  Appendix,  p.  501. 

2  'Man,'  he  says,  '  considers  himself,  and  with  good  reason,  as  an  end  in 
regard  to  natural  agents.  The  consideration  of  nature,  in  this  point  of  view,  is 
that  of  finite  theology.  This  theology  rests  on  a  just  idea,  that  nature  does  not 
contain  in  itself  the  absolute  end  —  the  last  end.'  —  Encyclopczdia  of  Philosophic 
Sciences,  Philosophy  of  Nature,  §  245. 

3  It  is  not  even  true  historically  that  the  physical  theology  of  the  18th  cen- 
tury is  exclusively  dominated  by  the  utilitarian  point  of  view,  or  that  of  exter- 
nal finality.  Paley's  book,  for  instance,  hardly  appeals  to  this  point  of  view, 
and  rests  mainly  on  the  internal  finality  of  organized  beings.  The  existence 
of  a  supreme  cause  of  nature  is  deduced  quite  as  well,  and  even  much  better, 
from  internal  finality  than  from  external  utilitj-,  or  from  pure  mechauism.  For 
a  cause  powerful  enough  to  make  a  work  having  in  itself  the  principle  and  end 
of  its  action,  is  superior  to  that  which  would  be  obliged  incessantly  to  put  its 
hand  to  the  work.  The  same  is  true  of  the  frivolities  with  which  Hegel,  after 
Voltaire,  and  with  less  wit  than  he,  reproaches  the  final  causalists,  but  which 
uo  more  belong  to  the  doctrine  of  transcendence  than  to  that  of  immanence. 


3J;0  BOOK  II.  CHAPTER  II. 

considering  each  organism  by  itself,  let  us  consider  them  all 
in  their  totality.  We  shall  see  that  they  are  all  reciprocally 
means  and  ends,  like  the  internal  parts  of  an  organism.  It  is 
thus,  for  instance,  that  the  vegetables  serve  the  animals  and 
the  animals  the  vegetables,  whether  in  taking  from  or  in 
restoring  to  the  air  the  elements  that  are  useful  to  them 
respectively,  —  these  oxygen,  those  carbon;  or,  again,  in 
serving  as  nutriment  for  each  other,  —  on  the  one  hand  as 
food,  on  the  other  as  manure.  It  is  also  evident  that  all 
living  beings  nourish  each  other,  in  so  far  as  the  superior  ani- 
mals, and  even  man,  afford  food  to  the  infinitely  small  ones, 
whose  function  seems  to  be  to  preserve  life  in  the  universe 
by  destroying  putrefied  matter,  which  would  poison  the  air 
and  deprive  it  of  every  vital  property.  In  fine,  living  beings  in 
general  are  in  a  perpetual  commerce  with  matter  in  general ; 
and  the  circulation  of  the  elements  constitutes  in  some  sort 
an  internal  life  of  the  earth,  analogous  to  that  of  the  indi- 
vidual organism.  Such  analogies  cannot  be  rejected  by  He- 
gel, for  no  philosopher  has  pushed  them  farther. 

Thus  we  have  here  a  sort  of  internal  finality  ;  but  it  is> 
not  absolute,  since  things  are  not  founded  in  a  unique  being, 
and  all  '  natural  beings  are  external  to  each  other,  exist  out- 
side and  independently  of  each  other.'  ^  Hence  it  follows 
that,  in  considering  them  separately,  they  seem  only  to  be 
means,  and  this  is  what  is  called  external  finality.  It  will, 
therefore,  be  allowable,  if  they  are  taken  thus,  and  not  in 
their  totality,  to  give  prominence  to  their  external  utility  — 
a  point  of  view  that  does  not  exclude  the  other,  and  is  closely 
united  to  it. 

If,  on  the  one  hand,  the  transcendental  theology  is  no  way 
bound  to  the  idea  of  an  external  finality,  and  especially  to  the 
abuse  that  may  be  made  of  that  finality,  on  the  other  hand 
it  is  no  way  contradicted  by  the  idea  of  an  internal  finality, 
such  as  Kant  explained  it.  That  a  supra-mundane  cause  has 
produced  a  woik  manifesting  an  internal  finality,  and  even 

1  Philosophy  of  Nature,  §  249. 


I 


IMMANENT  FINALITY.  341 

realizing  tliat  finality  by  its  own  powers,  presents  nothing 
contradictory  :  for  there  is  still  a  distinction  to  be  made  here, 
and  every  internal  finality  is  not  accompanied  by  an  internal 
motor,  nor  conversely.  In  a  statue,  for  instance,  the  finality 
is  internal,  for  a  statue  is  not  like  a  machine,  an  instrument 
for  making  something :  it  is  its  own  end,  and  yet  it  does 
not  realize  itself ;  the  motive  cause  is  outside  of  it.  A  tran- 
scendent cause  may  therefore  produce  a  work  that  has  an 
internal  end.  Conversely,  a  workman  who  employs  his  arms 
to  move  a  wheel  is  the  internal  and  immanent  cause  of  the 
motion  of  his  arms,  and  yet  the  end  is  external ;  for  the 
arms  do  not  work  for  themselves,  nor  for  the  rest  of  the  body, 
but  for  an  external  machine  :  they  are  machines  of  machines.. 
In  fine,  one  may  conceive  a  transcendent  cause  that  should 
produce  a  work  animated  by  an  internal  principle,  and  acting; 
for  an  internal  end.  Thus  the  father  is  in  relation  to  his- 
son  what  the  Scholastics  called  a  transitive  cause  ;  and  yet  tlie 
son  has  an  internal  principle  of  action,  and  that  principle 
moves  according  to  an  internal  finality.  According  to  this» 
one  does  not  see  why  the  supreme  cause  of  nature  should  not 
have  produced  works  (no  doubt  derived  from  it),  but  not 
purel}'  mechanical,  and  having  in  themselves  the  cause  and 
end  of  their  evolution. 

The  doctrine  of  a  supra-mundane  cause  not  only  does  not 
exclude  the  idea  of  an  internal  principle  of  action  in  nature, 
but  it  may  almost  be  said  to  require  it ;  and  it  may  be 
maintained  very  forcibly,  with  Leibnitz,  that  it  is  only  on 
this  condition  that  pantheism  —  that  is,  absolute  immanence 
—  will  be  overcome.  For  it  is  not  for  maintaining  a  certain 
degree  of  immanence  that  a  philosophy  can  be  characterised 
as  pantheism  ;  at  that  rate  there  would  be  none  that  had  not 
that  character.  But  the  proper  character  of  pantheism  (if  it 
knows  what  it  means)  is  to  refuse  to  finite  beings  all  proper 
activity,  in  order  to  restore  it  to  the  absolute  cause  and  sub- 
stance. If,  then,  this  absolute  cause  or  substance  is  believed 
to  be  distinct  from  the  world,  supra-mundane,  transcendental^ 


S4-  BOOK   II.   CHAPTER   II. 

that  can  only  be  by  attributing  to  tlie  finite  a  proper  reality, 
and  that  proper  reality  can  only  be  an  internal  activity  or 
an  internal  linality,  or  both  together.  If,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  doctrine  of  absolute  immanence  be  maintained,  it  must 
be  recognised  that  the  finite,  considered  as  such,  has  nothing 
that  is  internal  and  proper  to  it.  Hence  nature,  as  phenome- 
non, —  that  is,  perceptible  nature,  that  which  alone  we  know 
by  experience,  —  will  only  be  composed  of  appearances  and 
shadows,  having  in  themselves  neither  their  principle  of 
action  nor  their  end,  and  having  no  more  title  than  the 
artificial  works  of  man  to  a  soi-disant  internal  activity. 

Another  objection  of  the  Hegelians  ^  is  that  in  the 
hypothesis  of  finite  theology,  or  of  transcendency,  things  form 
an  indefinite  series  of  means  and  ends,  of  which  the  limit  is 
not  to  be  seen.  The  true  final  cause,  on  the  other  hand, 
ought  to  form  a  circle,  and,  being  the  realization  of  itself,  to 
return  to  itself,  —  that  is,  to  be  found  at  the  end  what  it  is  at 
the  beginning.  Be  it,  for  instance,  the  immanent  principle 
of  nature  that  the  Hegelians  call  the  idea,  this  principle, 
issuing  from  itself,  will  become  physical  nature,  dead  nature. 
It  at  first  shows  itself  as  foreign  as  possible  to  itself  in 
mechanism  or  pure  motion ;  then,  in  chemistry,  it  begins  to 
make  a  certain  effort  to  return  to  itself,  to  arrive  at  an  end  ; 
but  it  is  an  impotent  effort.  This  chemical  labour,  perpetu- 
ated and  becoming  durable,  is  the  organism.  Here  there  turn 
movement  is  still  more  visible  ;  the  effort  to  attain  unity  is 
more  efficacious ;  there  is  not  merely  combination,  but  con- 
centration. Finally,  above  the  organism  rises  the  mind,  in 
which  the  return  of  nature  to  the  idea  is  completely  manifested, 
first  in  the  individual  or  subjective  consciousness;  then  in  the 
consciousness  of  peoples  and  races,  the  objective  ;  and  finally  in 
the  absolute  consciousness  —  that  is  to  say,  in  art,  religion, 
and  philosophy.  At  this  last  terminus  the  idea  has  realized 
itself,  it  has  found  itself  again  after  having  lost  itself.     It 

1  Kuno  Fischer,  Logik  und  Metaphysik,  2  Auflage,  Heidelberg,  1865,  p.  502 
et  seq. 


IMMANENT  FINALITY.  343 

believed  itself  distinct  from  itself,  and  it  was  still  itself ;  and 
it  is  still  it  that  arrives  at  self-consciousness  in  philosophy.^ 
Here,  then,  is  a  true  end  —  the  world  forms  a  circle;  while  in 
the  other  theology  there  is  no  end,  and  the  world  incessantly 
seeks  one,  but  does  not  attain  it.  Such  would  be  the  advan- 
tage of  the  doctrine  of  immanence  over  that  of  transcendence. 
It  is,  in  our  opinion,  a  pure  illusion.  I  own  that,  in  the 
conception  of  a  world  distinct  from  God,  each  being,  always 
being  imperfect,  cannot  be  considered  as  an  absolute  end; 
man  himself  is  not  the  absolute  end  of  nature.  If  we  suppose 
above  man  other  creatures  superior  to  him,  we  no  more  con- 
ceive that  any  of  them  could  be  an  absolute  end.  The  world 
is  thus  an  indefinite  line  of  which  we  cannot  see  the  limit. 
But  is  it  otherwise  in  the  doctrine  of  immanence  ?  In  the  one 
as  in  the  other  one  does  not  see  a  terminus ;  and  as  to  saying 
that,  in  the  latter,  the  development  of  the  world  is  represented 
under  the  figure  of  a  curved  line,  and  in  the  former  of  a 
straight  line  (except  that  these  are  geometrical  metaphors  of 
mediocre  clearness),  there  is  no  reason  to  make  such  a  dis- 
tinction ;  for,  on  the  hypothesis  of  transcendence,  God  being 
at  once  the  end  and  the  cause  of  creation,  the  latter  tends  to 
return  to  Him  after  having  removed  from  Him,  exactly  in  the 
same  way  as  in  the  opposite  doctrine.  Yet  once  more,  the 
curve  will  never  be  finished  ;  but  it  will  no  more  be  so  accord- 
ing to  Hegel  than  to  Leibnitz.  The  finite  will  never  arrive 
at  an  adequate  consciousness  of  the  absolute,  the  mind  will 
never  realize  the  idea  in  its  totality,  which  would  be  necessary 
to  complete  the  circle.  In  fact,  so  long  as  the  idea  has  not 
an  absolute  consciousness  equal  to  itself,  a  perfect  representa- 
tion of  itself,  so  long  as  the  divine  knowledge  is  not  equal  to 
the  divine  being,  the  intelligence  to  the  intelligible,  the  circle 

1  '  In  itself  nature  is  a  living  whole.  .  .  .  The  tendency  of  its  movement  is 
that  the  idea  place  itself  as  what  it  is  in  itself,  or  what  comes  to  the  same 
thing,  that  the  idea  issue  from  that  externality,  which  is  death,  to  reduplicate 
on  itself,  and  become  first  organism  and  then  mind  (Geist),  which  is  t\\elast 
end  of  nature,  and  the  absolute  reality  of  the  idea.'  —  Philosophy  of  Nature. 
§251. 


344  BOOK  II.  CHAPTER  II. 

will  not  be  completed.  There  will  always  be  an  immense 
abyss  between  the  last  degree  and  the  absolute.  Thus,  on 
both  hypotheses,  there  is  an  incessant  labour  of  nature  to 
attain  an  end  it  will  never  reach ;  but  this  impossibility  ia 
much  more  irrational  on  the  hypothesis  of  immanence  than 
on  that  of  transcendence.  That  a  relative  world,  distinct 
from  God,  never  attains  the  absolute,  one  can  comprehend. 
But  that  an  absolute  world  can  never  return  to  the  principle 
from  which  it  emanates  is  contradictory.  But  who  can  have 
seriously  maintained,  except  in  a  first  moment  of  intoxication 
now  passed,  that  philosophy,  and  in  particular  the  philosophy 
of  Hegel,  is  adequate  to  the  absolute  itself?  Cannot  another 
philosophy  be  conceived  superior  to  it,  and  another  higher 
still,  ad  infinitum  F  So  long  as  it  is  only  a  question  of  a 
human  philosophy,  there  can  be  no  question  of  a  philosophy 
without  error,  obscurity,  and  ignorance.  What !  you  are  the 
absolute  ;  and  to  know  the  cause  of  the  smallest  phenomenon, 
you  are  obliged  to  wait  till  a  scientist  has  made  experiment  — 
has  weighed,  measured,  calculated !  An  absolute  that  in- 
cessantly seeks  and  never  finds  itself  is  nothing  else  than  a 
relative.  Hence  it  must  either  be  acknowledged  that  there 
is  no  absolute,  that  the  idea  is  a  pure  chimera,  that  only 
nature  is,  and  is  self-sufficient,  which  is  the  negation  of 
Hegelian  idealism ;  or  it  must  be  maintained  that  the  idea, 
while  manifesting  itself  in  nature,  is  yet  entirely  itself  only 
in  itself,  and  before  being  externalized,  which  is  the  essence 
of  the  doctrine  of  transcendence. 

To  sum  up:  the  idea  of  a  nature,  endued  with  internal 
activity,  and  working  to  an  internal,  although  relative  and 
subordinate  finality,  —  this  idea,  which  is  nothing  else  than 
the  thought  of  Leibnitz  well  understood,  contains  nothing 
that  excludes  a  supra-mundane  cause.  This  cause  is  dis- 
tinguished from  nature  in  that  it  is  beforehand,  entirely  and 
in  itself  an  absolute;  while  nature  can  only  express  and 
manifest  this  absolute  through  time  and  space,  without  ever 
completely  realizing  it.     It  is  this  very  impotence  of  nature 


IMMANENT   FINALITY.  345 

that  should  force  us  to  conclude  that  it  is  not  itself  the 
absolute,  for  an  absolute  that  incessantly  seeks  without  find- 
ing itself  is  a  contradictory  notion.  If,  then,  something  of 
this  kind  be  admitted,  it  ought,  if  we  know  what  we  mean,  to 
be  distinguished  from  nature,  at  least  so  far  that  nature  may 
develop  and  move,  without  the  first  principle  being  involved 
in  its  movement.  But  this  is  precisely  what  we  call  tran- 
scendentalisjn  well  understood. 

But  if  it  were  sought  to  press  still  farther  the  terms  of 
the  distinction,  and  to  derive  from  them  either  a  distinction 
of  substances,  or  the  creation  ex  niJiilo,  or  some  other  more 
explicitly  dualistic  doctrine,  we  would  say  yet  once  more  that 
this  is  to  pass  beyond  the  sphere  of  our  subject,  that  nothing 
obliges  us  to  consider  these  problems,  and  that  finality  does 
not  contain  in  this  point  of  view  any  particular  element  of 
solution. 

In  concluding  this  chapter,  we  shall  recapitulate  by  saying 
—  1st,  That  finality,  not  being  a  subjective  view  of  our  mind, 
but  a  real  law  of  nature,  demands  a  real  cause ;  2d,  That  the 
finality  of  nature  is  indeed,  as  Kant  has  said,  an  internal 
finality,  and  in  that  sense  immanent^  this  second  term  signify- 
ing nothing  more  than  the  first.  But  this  relative  immanence 
of  natural  finality  does  not  imply  an  absolute  immanence,  and, 
on  the  contrary,  can  only  be  comprehended  by  its  relation  to 
a  transcendent  terminus. 

These  two  difficulties  overcome,  we  are  now  face  to  face 
with  the  true  problem :  Is  the  supreme  cause  of  finality  an 
intelligent  cause,  a  mind  ?  This  will  be  the  object  of  our  last 
inquiries. 


CHAPTER  III. 

INSTESrCTIVE  AND  INTENTIONAL  FINALITY. 

' /^NE  ought  not  to  conceive  the  end,'  says  Hegel,  'under 
^  the  form  it  assumes  in  consciousness,  —  that  is  to  say, 
under  the  form  of  a  representation.'  ^  According  to  this  prin- 
ciple, the  end  is  not  an  effect  realized  according  to  a  precon- 
ceived idea :  it  is  the  eternal  conformity  of  things  to  their 
idea  or  essence.  Finality  is  thus  not  merely  immanent,  it  is 
unconscious. 

We  find  a  striking  instance  of  unconscious  finality  in  the 
instinct  of  animals. 

'  The  obscurity  in  which  instinct  is  enveloped,'  says  Hegel, 
'  and  the  difficulty  of  laying  hold  of  it,  arise  entirely  from 
this,  that  the  end  can  only  be  understood  as  an  internal  no- 
tion (inner e  Begriff},  whence  it  follows  that  all  explanations 
and  relations  that  are  only  founded  on  the  understanding  are 
inadequate  to  instinct.  What  chiefly  causes  the  difficulty  is 
that  the  relation  of  finality  is  usually  conceived  as  an  exter- 
nal relation,  and  that  it  is  thought  that  finality  only  exists 
where  there  is  consciousness.  But  instinct  is  the  activity 
that  acts  without  consciousness  in  order  to  an  end  (die  avf 
hewusstlose  Weise  wirkende  Zweckthatigkeit) .  The  animal  does 
not  know  its  ends  as  ends  ;  but  this  activity  that  unconsciously 
acts  in  pursuit  of  ends  is  what  Aristotle  calls  (^Wt?,'  2 

'  This  artistic  instinct,'  says  he  elsewhere,^  '  appears  as  an 
intentional  and  wise  act  of  nature  (als  zweckmassiges  Thun,  als 
Weisheit  der  JVatur'),  and  it  has  alwaj^s  been  regarded  as  a 
surprising  faculty,  because  it  has  been  the  habit  only  to  see 
reason   in  an  external  finality.     Plastic  instinct  is,  in  fact, 

1  Logic,  §  104.  2  Philosophy  of  Nature,  §  360,  8  Hjia.  §  366. 

346 


FINALITY  AND   INTENTION.  347 

analogous  to  the  conscious  mind ;  but  one  should  not,  there- 
fore, conceive  the  final  activity  of  nature  as  a  mind  that  is 
self-conscious.  As  artistic  instinct,  the  notion  is  only  the 
internal  virtuality  of  the  animal  (^das  Inner e  an  sich,  the  inter- 
nal in  itself),  an  unconscious  worker.  It  is  only  in  thought, 
in  the  human  artist,  that  the  notion  exists  for  itself.' 

Thus,  according  to  Hegel,  instinct  presents  us  with  the  type 
of  an  unconscious  finality,  and  shows  us  the  possibility  of  it, 
and  this  is  the  true  notion  of  nature.  Consciousness  is  only 
one  of  the  forms  of  finality ;  it  is  not  its  adequate  and  abso- 
lute form.  It  need  not  be  supposed,  however,  that,  in 
Hegel's  view,  instinct  itself  should  be  the  last  word  in  finality. 
Before  all,  in  his  thought,  finality  is  notion^  concept,  or  at 
least  an  element  of  the  notion,  and  instinct  is  only  a  form 
of  it.  It  is  only  in  the  Hegelian  Left  that  finality  has  been 
more  and  more  confounded  with  the  blind  activity  of  nature. 

But  the  school  that  has  most  decidedly  adopted  and 
defended  the  doctrine  of  instinctive  finality  is  that  of  Scho- 
penhauer. This  school  has  insisted  much  on  the  principle  of 
finality ;  but,  like  the  Hegelian  school,  it  asserts  an  uncon- 
scious finalit}',  and  finds  in  instinct  the  type  of  it. 

'  There  is  no  contradiction  whatever,'  says  Frauenstadt,  '  in 
admitting  that  a  force,  a  plastic  instinct,  by  a  blind  tendency 
creates  works  which  then  are  revealed  to  the  analytic  under- 
standing as  conformed  to  an  end.  An  unconscious  fiyiality  is 
not,  then,  a  contradiction  m  adjecto  ;  and  from  the  denial  of  a 
personal  creator  of  the  world,  aiming  at  conscious  ends,  there 
no  more  follows  denial  of  the  harmony  of  the  world  than 
the  denial  of  the  harmony  of  the  organs  follows  from  the 
affirmation  that  a  plastic  organic  virtue  acts  unconsciously  in 
plants  and  animals.  The  Aristotelian  opposition  between  the 
etficient  and  the  final  cause  is  in  no  way  identical  with  the 
opposition  between  the  unconscious  and  the  intelligent  cause. 
For  the  final  cause  itself  may  be  unconscious.'  ^ 

1  Frauenstadt,  Briefe  iiber  die  Schopenhauersche  Fhilosophie  (Leipzig,  1854), 
Letter  21,  j^.  442. 


348  BOOK   II.   CHAPTER   III. 

Schopenhauer  expresses  himself  in  the  same  way :  '  The 
admiration  and  astonishment  which  are  wont  to  seize  ns  in 
view  of  the  infinite  finality  manifested  in  the  construction  of 
the  organized  being,  rests  at  bottom  on  the  natural  but  false 
supposition  that  this  agreement  of  the  parts  with  each  other 
and  with  the  whole  of  the  organism,  as  well  as  with  its 
external  ends,  is  realized  by  the  same  principle  that  enables 
us  to  conceive  and  judge  it,  and,  consequentl}^  by  means  of 
representation ;  that,  in  a  word,  as  it  exists  for  the  under- 
standing, so  it  only  exists  hy  the  understanding.  No  doubt, 
we  can  realize  nothing  regular  or  conformed  to  an  end,  except 
under  the  condition  of  the  conception  of  that  end ;  but  we 
are  not  warranted  to  transfer  these  conditions  to  nature, 
which  is  itself  a  prius  of  all  intellect,  and  whose  action  is 
absolutely  distinct  from  ours.  It  brings  to  pass  what  appears 
^  to  us  so  wonderfully  teleological,  without  reflection  and  with- 
out concept  of  the  end,  for  it  is  without  representation,  a 
phenomenon  of  secondary  origin.'  ^ 

'  It  seems,'  says  the  same  author  again,^  '  that  nature  has 
meant  to  give  us  a  brilliant  comment  of  its  productive 
activity  in  the  artistic  instinct  of  the  animals ;  for  these 
show  us  most  evidently  that  beings  may  work  to  an  end  with 
the  greatest  surety  and  precision,  without  knowing  it,  and 
without  having  the  least  conception  of  it.  .  .  .  The  artistic 
instincts  of  insects  throw  much  light  on  the  action  of  the 
will  without  knowledge,  which  is  manifested  in  the  internal 
springs  of  the  organism  and  in  its  formation.  .  .  .  The 
insects  will  the  end  in  general,  without  knowing  it,  precisely 
like  nature  when  it  acts  according  to  final  causes.  They 
have  not  even  the  choice  of  means  in  general ;  it  is  only  the 
detail  that  in  particular  cases  is  left  to  their  knowledge.' 

Such   are    the   reasons   of  the    adherents   of  unconscious 

finality.     But  this  doctrine,  we  have  said,  may  assume  two 

forms:  finality  may  be  considered  as  an   instinct,  which   is 

the  doctrine  of  Schopenhauer,  or  as  an  idea,  which  is  the 

1  Die  Welt  als  Wille,  t.  ii.  chap.  xxvi.  2  /jjd. 


FINALITY  \^D   INTENTION.  319 

doctrine  of  Hegel.  Let  us  first  consider  the  former.  The 
latter  will  be  the  subject  of  the  following  chapter. 

To  attribute  to  nature  an  instinctive  activity,  is  to  say  that 
nature  acts  like  bees  and  the  ant,  in  place  of  acting  like 
man ;  it  is  zoomorphism  substituted  for  anthropomorphism. 
We  see  no  advantage  in  it. 

In  fact,  the  true  difficulty,  the  profound  difficulty  in  this 
question,  is  that  we  can  only  explain  the  creative  activity  of 
nature  by  comparing  it  to  something  that  is  in  nature  itself, 
—  that  is  to  say,  which  is  precisely  one  of  the  effects  of  that 
activity.  Kant  expresses  this  in  these  words :  '  Can  the  in- 
ternal possibility  of  nature,  acting  spontaneously  Qwhich  first 
renders  possible  all  art,  and  perhaps  even  reason),  be  derived 
from  another  art  still,  but  superhuman  ? '  This,  the  true, 
the  only  difficulty,  evidently  applies  to  the  hypothesis  of  a 
primitive  instinct  quite  as  well  as  to  that  of  a  primitive 
intelligence.  Instinct  is  not  less  a  fact  of  nature  than  intel- 
ligence itself;  and  in  the  one  case,  as  in  the  other,  the  effect 
will  be  transformed  into  the  cause. 

But  if  one  is  content  to  say,  like  Schopenhauer,  that 
instinct  is  only  a  commentary/  of  the  creative  activity, — that 
is  to  say,  a  symbol,  an  example  that  may  give  some  idea  of 
it, — it  may  be  asked  wherein  this  commentary  is  more  lumi- 
nous than  that  which  we  find  in  intelligence,  or  in  mechanism 
properly  so  called.  There  are,  in  fact,  three  modes  of  action 
in  nature,  —  mechanism,  instinct,  and  thought.  Of  these 
three  modes,  two  only  are  distinctly  known  to  us,  mechanism 
and  intelligence.  Instinct  is  the  most  obscure,  most  unex- 
plained. Why,  of  the  three  modes  of  action  of  nature,  should 
the  most  luminous  commentary  of  the  creative  activity  be 
precisely  that  of  which  nothing  is  understood  ?  All  science 
since  Descartes  tends  to  suppress  occult  qualities.  Instinct 
is  essentially  an  occult  quality.  To  choose  it  to  explain  final- 
ity, when  it  is  itself  the  most  incomprehensible  instance  of 
finality,  is  not  this  to  explain  ohseurum  per  obscurius?  In 
fine,  of  three  modes  of  action  of  nature,  one  inferior,  another 


350  BOOK  II.  CHAPTER  III, 

superior,  the  other  intermediate,  why  choose  as  type  precisely 
that  which  is  only  a  middle  term  ?  Mechanism  is  inferior, 
but  it  has  the  advantage  of  being  the  simplest  of  all.  Intel- 
ligence is  the  most  complicated,  but  it  has  the  advantage  of 
being  the  most  elevated  term.  Instinct  presents  neither  the 
one  nor  the  other  of  these  advantages.  A  middle  phenome- 
non, it  seems,  indeed,  to  be  only  a  passage  from  the  one  to 
the  other,  from  mechanism  to  intelligence  —  to  be  only  a 
more  particular  and  complex  case  of  the  first,  or  the  rudi- 
mentary state  of  the  last.  In  any  case,  it  seems  in  no  way 
to  have  the  character  of  a  principle. 

In  another  point  of  view,  instinct  is  again  subject  to  the 
same  difficulties  as  intelligence.  That  is  to  say,  the  latter 
is  objected  to  as  only  known  to  us  under  the  condition  of 
organization.  Are  we  warranted,  it  is  said,  to  suppress  this- 
condition,  and  to  conceive  in  the  pure  state,  and  as  anterior 
to  nature,  a  faculty  which  is  only  given  to  us  as  a  result  ? 
Whatever  be  the  weight  of  this  objection,  it  is  as  applicable 
to  instinct  as  to  intelligence  ;  for  instinct,  like  intelligence,  is 
bound  to  organization :  there  is  no  more  instinct  than  intelli- 
gence in  inorganic  beings. 

But  if  the  hypothesis  of  instinctive  finality  presents  no 
advantage  over  that  of  intelligent  finality,  it  presents,  on  the 
other  hand,  much  greater  difficulties.  The  question  still 
remains,  how  a  cause  attains  an  end  by  appropriate  means, 
without  having  either  known  that  end  or  chosen  the  means  ? 
The  question  must  be  well  answered.  Is  the  idea  of  end 
admitted  or  not?  If  admitted,  this  idea  necessarily  implies, 
whether  we  will  or  not,  that,  a  given  result  being  predeter- 
mined (for  instance,  seeing  or  hearing),  the  efficient  cause, 
which,  as  such,  was  capable  of  taking  millions  of  different 
directions,  has  limited  the  choice  of  these  directions  to  those 
that  could  bring  about  the  required  result.  But  to  say  that 
a  hidden  cause  produces  this  limitation  and  determination  we 
know  not  why,  is  simply  to  revert  to  the  hypothesis  of  chance. 

Will  it  be  said  that  only  one  of  these  directions  was  pos 


FINALITY   AND    INTENTION.  351 

sible,  and  that  all  the  others  are  excluded  by  the  very  nature 
of  the  cause  ?  In  this  case  the  final  cause  is  set  aside  in 
order  to  revert  to  the  efficient  cause,  which  is  Spinozism. 
What,  in  fact,  does  the  idea  of  end  do  here,  and  wherein  is  it 
end,  if  each  of  the  effects  is  contained  in  that  which  precedes, 
and  if  all  together  are  only  the  unfolding  of  the  nature  of  each 
being  ?  On  this  hypothesis,  there  is  no  more  final  cause  in 
physiology  than  in  geometry. 

To  say,  with  Schopenhauer,  '  Because  finality  exists  for 
intelligence,  it  does  not  follow  that  it  exists  hy  intelligence,' 
is  at  bottom  to  suppress  finality.  We  must  choose  between 
subjective  and  instinctive  finality.  If  finality  only  exists  for 
intelligence,  it  does  not  in  reality  exist  at  all ;  it  is  an  illusory 
phenomenon.  '  It  is  our  understanding,'  says  Schopenhauer, 
'  that,  seizing  the  object  b}'  means  of  its  own  forms,  time, 
space,  causality,  first  produces  the  plurality  and  divisibility  of 
parts  and  of  their  functions,  and  then  falls  into  amazement  at 
the  perfect  harmony  and  co-operation  of  these  parts  resulting 
from  the  original  unity,  in  which,  consequently,  it  admires  its 
own  work.'  ^  If  this  be  so,  finality  is  only  a  subjective  con- 
ception. But  then  the  objection  of  Herbart,  quoted  above,^ 
recurs :  If  we  carry  with  us  the  concept  of  finality,  why  not 
apply  it  everywhere,  and  to  all  things,  like  causality  ?  If  we 
only  do  so  in  regard  to  certain  objects,  it  is  because  these 
objects  present  certain  special  characters.  These  characters 
do  not  come  from  us ;  they  must,  therefore,  have  an  objective 
cause.  But  instinct  is  not  a  cause  —  it  is  a  non-cause  ;  for, 
between  the  indetermination  of  the  instinctive  faculty  and 
the  strict  determination  of  the  end,  there  is  the  disproportion 
of  the  infinite  to  the  finite. 

For  the  rest,  the  inadequacy  of  Schopenhauer's  theory  is^ 
confirmed  even  by  the  acknowledgment  and  reform  of  his 
disciple  and  successor  Hartmann,  who,  without  himself  ad- 
vancing to  the  conception  of  intelligent  finality,  yet  makes 
a  way  of  return  towards  that  conception.      In  fact,  Schopen- 

1  Die  Welt  ah  Wille,  chap.  xxvi.  2  gee  p.  324. 


352  BOOK  n.   CHAPTER  IH. 

hauer  had  completely  separated  the  will  and  representation 
(der  Wille  und  die  Vorstellung').  Representation,  which  is 
the  foundation  of  the  intellectual  act,  was,  in  his  view,  a 
merely  secondary  thing  {cjanz  secundiiren  Ursprungs).  Hart- 
mann,  on  the  other  hand,  restores  the  bond  between  these  two 
things,  and  says  very  justl}'':  'Tendency  is  only  the  empty 
form  of  the  zvill,  .  .  .  and  as  every  empty  form  is  only  an 
abstraction,  volition  is  existential  or  actual  only  in  its  relation 
to  the  representation  of  a  present  or  future  state.  No  one 
can  really  will  purely  and  simply,  without  willing  this  or 
that.  A  will  that  does  not  will  something  is  nothing.  It 
is  only  by  the  determination  of  its  content  that  the  will 
acquires  the  possibility  of  existence,  and  this  content  is  repre- 
sentation. Thus,  then,  there  is  no  will  without  representation, 
as  Aristotle  had  said  before  :  opeKTLKuv  8k  ovk  avev  ^avrao-ta?  (^De 
An.  iii.  30).'  i 

Herein  lies,  Hartmann  adds,  the  cause  of  the  error  and 
'insufficiency  (^die  JSalbheit}  of  Schopenhauer's  philosophy, 
who  only  recognised  the  will  as  a  metaphysical  principle,  and 
made  representation  or  the  intellect  originate  materially.' 

Hartmann  admits,  then,  that  the  will  is  impossible  without 
representation,  only  with  him  this  representation  is  at  first 
unconscious.  Finality  would  thus  still  remain  unconscious. 
And  yet  a  great  step  would  be  taken.  There  would  be  con- 
ceded to  the  first  cause  the  reality  of  intelligence,  save  in 
considering  consciousness  as  only  an  accessory  phenomenon, 
which  remains  for  discussion.  The  question  would  no  longer 
Tdb  as  to  an  intelligent  cause,  but  as  to  an  unconscious  intelli- 
gence, which  is  different.  The  question  changes  ground. 
Can  there  be  representations  without  consciousness?  Such 
is  now  the  point  of  the  debate.  Hartmann  quotes  the  opinion 
of  Kant  and  Leibnitz ;  but  these  two  authors  rather  speak  of 
obscure,  indistinct  perceptions,  of  an  extremely  feeble  con- 
sciousness, than  of  absolutely  unconscious  perceptions  in  strict 
terms.  It  is  not  for  us  further  to  engage  in  th^oc  q\?«,stions, 
1  Philos.  des  Unhctvuieten,  A.  iv. 


FINALITY  AND   INTENTION.  353 

which  would  remove  us  too  far  from  the  present  discussion. 
In  fact,  to  reintroduce  representation,  even  unconscious,  into 
activity,  is  partly  to  return  to  the  Hegelian  conception,  which 
reduces  finality  to  notion,  concept,  idea,  and  not  merely  to 
pure  instinct.  But  this  point  of  view  will  occupy  us  in  the 
following  chapter. 

This  last  transformation  of  hylozoiam  (for  Schopenhauer's 
philosophy  hardly  deserves  any  other  name)  suffices  to  show 
the  nullity  of  the  explanation  of  finality  by  instinct.  But  if 
instinctive  finality  seems  to  us  inadmissible,  we  still  admit 
that  intentio7ial  finality  has  its  difficulties,  which  must  be 
examined  more  closely. 

The  profoundest  discussion  that  we  know  against  inten- 
tionalism  is  that  of  a  Hegelian  philosopher,  Fortlage,  in  his 
History  of  the  Proofs  of  the  Existence  of  God} 

This  discussion  sums  up  and  completes  all  the  difficulties 
previously  enumerated.     We  reproduce  it  here. 

'  I.  According  to  the  argument  of  Paley,  wherever  there  is 
finaKty,  there  must  be  present  and  in  action  the  conception  of 
an  end  to  be  attained,  and,  consequently,  an  intelligence  in 
which  this  concept  resides.  If,  then,  a  single  case  can  be 
produced  where  an  end  is  attained  without  the  concept  of  an 
end  necessarily  intervening,  the  argument  is  invalidated. 
Consequently,  to  maintain  this  argument,  I  am  forced,  wher- 
ever nature  by  a  blind  impulse,  or  by  a  secret  force  of  pres- 
ervation, attains  its  end  of  itself,  I  am  forced,  I  sajs  to  recur 
without  necessity  to  the  creator.  For  instance,  if  the  end 
(^ZwecTc)  of  self-preservation  is  manifested  in  the  animal,  and 
attains  its  object  (^Ziel)  by  the  taking  of  food,  if  the  end 
{Ziveck')  of  hardness  is  manifested  in  the  stone,  as  the  force 
of  cohesion  of  its  atoms,  and  attains  its  goal  (^ZieV)  by  their 
reciprocal  attraction,  I  can  no  longer  see  the  end  in  the  nat- 
ural forces  themselves  (for  instance,  in  cohesion  hardness,  in 

1  DarsteUung  und  Kritik  der  Beweise  fiirs  Daseyn  Gottes,  Heidelberg  1840, 
p.  237  et  seq.  —  Bedenken  gegen  die  Paleysche  Schlussform :  Difficulties  regard- 
ing Paley  s  argumeat. 


854  BOOK  II.   CHAPTER  III. 

hunger  the  mstinct  of  preservation),  but  I  must  violently 
separate  the  one  from  the  other. 

'  We  soon  see  ourselves  drawn  to  other  still  more  extreme- 
consequences.  In  the  artistic  activity  of  the  human  race,  for 
instance,  ends'  are  manifested  that  are  attained  by  a  feeliag 
acting  blindly,  and  not  by  a  calculation  of  the  mind.  How 
often  has  criticism  been  able  to  discover  in  a  man  of  genius, 
ends  attained  by  his  action  of  which  he  did  not  think! 
Could  any  calculation  of  the  understanding  have  presented 
to  the  mind  of  Mozart,  for  depicting  certain  emotions  of  the 
mind,  so  appropriate  means  as  those  which  his  genius  found 
under  the  influence  of  inspiration  ?  But  if  Paley's  proof  is 
considered  valid,  we  cannot  admit  any  case  where  a  deter- 
minate end  is  attained  by  determinate  means,  without  the 
conception  of  the  end  being  found  as  such  in  a  certain  under- 
standing, and  without  the  means  having  been  chosen  for  the 
end  by  an  intentional  arrangement.  We  must  thus  believe 
that,  while  Mozart  composed,  the  divine  understanding  assisted 
him  like  an  arithmetic  master,  and  that  for  the  end  of  express- 
ing poi.:;3ion  he  threw  into  his  heart,  in  proportion  as  he  had 
need,  the  means,  carefully  chosen  and  appropriate.  If,  07i  the 
other  hand,  it  is  granted  us  for  a  moment  that  Mozart  may 
have  attained  a  single  end  in  his  music  by  an  instinct  of 
feeling,  without  mental  calculation,  the  received  argument  is 
invalidated ;  it  may  still  serve  to  persuade,  but  not  to 
convince. 

'II.  Mathematics  give  us  a  great  number  of  instances  of 
finality  attained  without  any  end  proposed  beforehand,  or,  to 
speak  more  exactly,  of  finality,  which  we  do  not  habitually 
consider  as  such,  because  the  end  attained  does  not  appear 
more  important  than  the  means  applied.  Kant  speaks  ot 
this  mathematical  teleology  in  the  Critique  of  the  Judgment} 

'  Whence  comes  it  that,  in  this  case,  we  are  not  astonished,. 
as  in  other  cases,  at  intentional  arrangements  ?  Why  do  we 
not  infer  a  wise  author  who  had  ordained  all  that  conformably 

1  Critique  of  the  Judgment,  t.  ii.  §  Ixi. 


FINALITY  AND  INTENTION.  355 

,to  tlie  end  by  the  most  simple  means?  Simply  because  here 
we  do  not  attach  any  value  to  the  end  attained.  Whether 
the  triangle  always  has  the  sum  of  its  angles  equal  to  two 
right  angles,  whether  the  peripheric  angles  subtended  by  the 
same  chord  are  equal  or  not,  is  of  no  importance  in  our  eyes, 
because  we  do  not  see  the  use  of  it.  We  do  not  value  a 
wisdom  even  acting  for  an  end,  if  that  end  is  of  no  use  to 
us.  That  the  triangle  has  its  three  angles  equal  to  two  right 
angles  does  not  appear  to  us  an  end,  but  an  inevitable  conse- 
quence of  the  rencounter  of  primitive  mathematical  relations. 
If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  question  is  of  something  that  has 
reference  to  the  preservation  of  man,  or  of  some  being  affect- 
ing him,  it  seems  we  cannot  then  too  much  appreciate  the 
ingenious  means  created  and  brought  into  play,  with  intelli- 
gence and  zeal,  for  such  an  end,  although  in  this  case,  as  in 
that  of  the  triangle,  it  might  quite  as  well  be  supposed  that 
the  end  is  only  the  inevitable  result  of  the  conflict  of  certain 
given  primitive  relations.  If  the  preservation  of  man,  of  the 
animals  or  plants,  were  bound  up  with  the  persistence  of  180 
<legrees  in  the  triangle,  then  we  would  wonder  at  the  high 
excellence  of  this  adaptation  to  the  end,  which  we  now  find 
quite  simple  and  natural ;  and  if,  conversely,  we  had  no  more 
interest  in  the  preservation  of  man,  the  animal,  and  the  jjlant, 
than  in  the  persistence  of  180  degrees  in  the  triangle,  then, 
like  entirely  disinterested  spectators,  we  would  lose  sight  of 
the  co-ordination  of  ends  and  means,  and  would  at  once  ask 
whether  all  these  ends,  attained  by  nature,  are  not  the  con- 
sequences of  the  conflict  of  certain  primitive  laws,  as  is  the 
case  with  ends  in  mathematics. 

'  III.  Besides,  it  must  be  remembered  that  the  teleological 
argument  does  not  derive  its  decisive  force  from  the  existence 
of  a  universal  finality,  extending  everywhere,  but  from  a  sort 
of  dissemination  of  final  causes,  accidentally  dispersed  over 
the  vast  empire  of  nature,  such  that  the  striking  examples 
shine  as  exceptions  so  brilliantly  that  they  seem  to  be  some- 
thing surpassing  the  powers  of  nature  itself.     If  the  law  of 


356  BOOK  II.  CHAPTER  III. 

finality  were  as  universal  in  nature  as  the  law  of  causality^, 
if  there  were  even  no  phenomenon  in  which  it  was  not 
manifested,  then  we  would  cease  to  fmd  this  law  miraculous 
as  a  law  of  nature,  and  would  not  be  tempted  to  infer  from 
it  any  supernatural  intervention.  For  instance,  because  in 
a  certain  country,  certain  species  of  plants  happen  to  grow 
which  exactly  serve  for  food  or  medicine  to  the  animals  of 
that  country,  or,  again,  because  in  a  given  country  such 
animals  are  found  as  deliver  the  country  from  other  animals 
that  would  be  hurtful,  this  appears  to  us  wonderful  and 
surprising,  b'^uause  all  natural  events  do  not  exhibit  to  us  so 
immediately,  in  their  reciprocal"  relation,  so  intentional  and 
organic  a  connection.  The  poverty  that  nature  presents,  in 
the  point  of  view  of  finalit}^  inspires  us  with  a  certain  dis- 
trust  of  the  powers  of  that  nature,  — a  distrust  that  goes  so 
far,  that  when  an  accomplished  finality  is  really  displayed  in 
it,  we  usually  prefer  to  have  recourse  to  a  miracle,  rather 
than  suppose  any  such  thing  accomplished  by  the  powers  of 
nature  itself. 

'  This  distrust  of  nature  is  very  analogous  to  the  distrust 
of  misanthropes,  as  it  is  shown  in  the  moral  world.  As  the 
misanthrope  is  tormented  by  the  morbid  prejudice  that 
human  nature  is  too  feeble  to  oppose  evil,  and  that,  con- 
sequently, there  is  no  virtuous  man  in  the  world,  so  the 
physico-theologian  lives  with  the  prejudice  that  nature  is 
too  feeble  and  too  impotent  for  a  closer  connection  of  its 
creatures  than  the  connection  of  efficient  causality ;  and  in 
his  illusion,  where  the  true  law  of  causality  ceases,  he  draws 
the  bolt,  and  beyond  he  prefers  to  believe  in  the  miracle  and 
in  ghost  stories  rather  than  consent  to  the  idea  of  a  teleo- 
logical  process  in  nature  itself. 

'IV.  Besides,  on  the  teleological  hypothesis  the  creator 
cannot  be  cleared  of  a  certain  feebleness,  or  a  certain  inclina- 
tion to  useless  play,  when  he  is  seen  to  attain,  by  a  grand 
apparatus  of  ingenious  inventions,  very  small  ends,  which  an 
Almighty  Creator,  such  as  He  who  is  in  question,  should  have 


FINALITY  AND   INTENTION.  35T 

been  able  to  attain  by  simpler  means,  and  much  more  briefly, ' 
without  creating  for  Himself  useless  obstacles  in  His  way 
Even  Paley,  the  great  admirer  of  the  divine  wisdom  in  the 
organization  of  animals,  expresses  his  astonishment  on  this 
point,  and  sees  no  other  refuge  than  in  the  incomprehensi 
bility  of  God's  ways :  "  Why,"  he  asks  himself,  "  has  not  the 
inventor  of  this  marvellous  machine  (the  eye)  given  the 
animals  the  faculty  of  sight  without  employing  this  compli- 
cation of  means  ?  "  ^ 

'  Again,  the  human  eye  is  at  once  the  most  finished  and 
the  simplest  of  organs.  Much  less  perfect,  more  insufficient, 
and  a  thousand  times  more  complicated,  are  the  thousand  lit 
tie  tubes  of  the  combined  eyes  of  insects.  Why  has  the- 
wisest  of  creators  had  recourse  in  the  creation  of  animals  tO' 
so  imperfect  apparatus,  when  later  He  was  to  show  by  the 
fact,  that  the  material  of  nature  was  capable  of  producing 
one  much  more  perfect?  Did  He,  then,  find  pleasure  in 
realizing,  only  to  vary,  by  imperfect  and  difficult  means,. 
what  He  could  obtain  much  more  quickly  by  more  perfect 
means?  Is  such  child's  play,  that  creates  obstacles  for  its 
own  amusement,  and  indulges  its  humour  in  oddities  and 
marvels,  worthy  of  a  wise  Creator?  He  has  shown  in  the 
stomach  of  man,  the  birds,  and  the  ruminants,  how  many 
means  were  at  His  disposal  to  realize  a  process  of  digestion 
that  should  take  place  without  effort :  why  have  those  means- 
failed  Him  for  serpents?  and  why  has  He  permitted  in  this 
case  the  function  of  nutrition  to  be  fulfilled  by  a  disagreea- 
ble process,  as  fatiguing  for  the  animal  as  repulsive  to  the- 
spectator  ?  These  instances,  and  others  like  them,  are  fitted 
to  awaken  the  desire  for  a  less  forced  explanation  of  nature, 
in  case  such  an  explanation  were  possible. 

'V.  In  fine,  there  is  at  the  foundation  of  the  physico- 
teleological  proof  a  sentiment  of  the  soul  of  quite  another 
nature  than  that  which  results  from  the  teleological  calcula^ 
tion  with  concept  of  the  understanding  —  that  is,  an  edifice^ 

1  Paley,  Natural  Theology,  chap.  ii. 


858  BOOK  II.   CHAPTER  III. 

added  later,  awkwardly  to  prop  and  magnify  this  instinctive 
sentiment.  Nature,  when  we  contemplate  its  works,  fills  us 
with  wonder,  and  we  feel  ourselves  spiritually,  and  as  if 
sacredly,  inspired.  There  breathes  in  us,  as  it  were,  a  com- 
munion with  the  thousand  creatures  that  burst  forth  in  spring, 
and  joyfully  rush  into  life.  We  keenly  feel  the  breath  of  a 
spiritual  and  vivifying  power.  Such  a  feeling  is  scarcely 
compatible  with  the  point  of  view  of  a  machine,  so  wisely 
ordained  by  an  external  mechanician  that  there  is  nothing  more 
ingenious  and  better  ordered  than  the  fitting  of  its  wheels.' 

Such  is  the  learned  and  curious  reclamation  of  the  Hegelian 
philosophy  against  the  doctrine  of  intention.  Let  us  briefly 
resume,  while  submitting  them  to  a  severe  discussion,  the  pre- 
ceding objections. 

I.  The  first  difficulty  is  this :  There  are  numerous  cases  in 
nature  where  the  tendency  towards  an  end  is  not  accompanied 
by  the  clear  conception  of  that  end.  For  instance,  the  ten- 
dency of  bodies  towards  a  centre,  the  instinct  of  animals,  the 
inspiration  of  great  men,  are  facts  of  this  kind.  If,  then, 
these  different  forces  are  not  to  be  recognised  as  immanent  in 
nature,  recourse  must  incessantly  be  had  to  the  first  cause 
without  need,  and  we  fall  into  occasionalism.  In  a  word, 
immanent  and  unconscious  finality,  or  deus  ex  machind  — 
such  are  the  two  horns  of  the  dilemma. 

We  reply  that  this  dilemma  sins  against  the  fundamental 
rule  of  this  kind  of  reasoning,  which  requires  that  there  be 
only  two  possible  alternatives,  without  intermediaries,  whence 
the  rule  of  the  exclusio  tertii.  But  here  there  is  between 
the  two  opposite  hypotheses  a  mean  hypothesis,  which  the 
author  omits,  and  which  consists  in  supposing  that  there  are, 
indeed,  immanent  forces  in  things,  and  forces  unconsciously 
tending  towards  an  end,  but  that  this  immanent  finality  is 
derived  and  not  primitive,  relative  and  not  absolute.  Between 
Hegel's  hypothesis  and  Paley's  there  is  room  for  that  of 
Leibnitz,  who  by  no  means  admits  that  we  must  incessantly 
have  recourse  to  God  as  to  a   mechanician,  without  whom 


FINALITY  AND   INTENTION.  35^ 

the  machine  cannot  go.  He  admits  that  God  has  placed  in 
the  thing  at  the  first  a  certain  force  of  spontaneity  and  energy, 
which  is  displayed  conformably  to  an  internal  law  without 
the  necessity  of  the  action  of  God  being  added  to  it,  which 
force  will  be  called,  according  to  occasion,  tendency,  instinct, 
inspiration,  etc.  Such  facts  do  not  in  the  least  prove  that  an 
activity  can  be  conceived  aiming  at  an  end,  without  any  notion 
of  that  end;  for  these  forces,  more  or  less  blind  and  ignorant 
of  their  end,  may  be  derived  from  some  being  that  knows 
that  end  for  them.  Nay,  this  is  the  only  means  we  have  of 
comprehending  this  hidden  and  unconscious  tendency  towards 
an  end.  There  is  nothing  in  this  that  touches  the  principle, 
or  is  irreconcilable  with  it. 

But  is  it  possible,  it  will  be  said,  to  conceive  that,  even  if 
created,  blind  forces  can  attain  a  certain  end  ?  And  if  this 
be  granted,  why  should  not  an  uncreated  force  equally  attain 
it?  We  have  here  the  true  difficult}^  which  Bayle,  in  a 
similar  discussion  on  plastic  natures,  had  already  excellently 
perceived  :  '  But  if  a  faculty  without  consciousness  and  reason,' 
he  says,  '  merely  because  it  is  created  by  an  intelligent  being, 
becomes  fit  to  accomplish  works  that  require  intelligence,  is  it 
not  as  if  it  were  said  that,  of  two  men  equally  blind,  the  one 
does  not  know  his  way,  the  other  knows  it  because  he  has 
been  created  by  a  father  with  eyes?  If  you  are  blind,  it 
matters  little  whether  you  were  born  of  a  blind  or  seeing 
father,  for  in  both  cases  you  always  need  to  be  guided  by  the 
advice  and  the  hand  of  another.  So,  to  regulate  matter,  it 
matters  little  whether  plastic  nature  be  born  of  an  intelligent 
cause,  if  it  is  blind  and  knows  not  in  what  way  to  proceed  to 
.compose,  separate,  distribute,  or  reunite  the  elements  of  mat- 
ter. Of  what  use  is  the  power  of  acting  without  the  faculty  of 
comprehending?  Of  what  use  are  legs  to  a  blind  man?  .  .  . 
Consequently,  if  plastic  causes  are  entirely  destitute  of  intelli- 
gence, they  must  be  continually  directed  by  God  as  physical 
instruments.'  Consequently,  according  to  Bayle,  the  hy- 
pothesis of  plastic  natures,  little  different  at  bottom  from  the 


360  BOOK  II.  CHAPTER  III. 

Leibnitzian  forces,  either  reverts  to  pure  mechanism  and  occa- 
sionalism, or  leads  to  the  negation  of  a  supreme  cause ;  for  if 
a  blind  force,  tending  towards  an  end  and  attaining  it,  implies 
no  contradiction,  we  cannot  see  why  such  forces  should  any 
more  imply  a  contradiction  because  existing  of  themselves. 

To  this  we  repl3%  with  J.  Leclerc,  the  defender  of  plastic 
natures :  "What  implies  contradiction  is  not  the  fact  of  a  blind 
force  tending  towards  an  end,  since  experience  shows  us  such, 
but  is  just  the  hypothesis  of  such  a  force  existing  of  itself: 
for  in  that  case  we  do  not  see  whence  it  can  derive  the  deter- 
mination towards  the  end,  and  the  exact  choice  of  means 
leading  to  it.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  such  a  force  is  only 
derived,  the  reason  of  its  determinations  is  in  the  intelligence 
of  the  cause  from  which  they  emanate.  What,  says  Bayle, 
does  it  matter,  if  the  force  is  blind,  whether  it  have  as  author 
an  intelligent  being  ?  What  matters  it  whether  a  blind  man 
be  born  of  a  seeing  father  ?  To  solve  this  difficult}-,  let  us 
borrow,  like  Bayle  himself,  our  examples  from  experience. 
Every  day  we  see  intelligent  beings  communicate  to  other 
beings  dispositions  and  impulsions  that  direct  them  uncon- 
sciously towards  a  determinate  end.  This  takes  place,  for 
instance,  in  education.  Parents  insinuate  by  example,  by  a 
certain  tact,  by  caresses,  etc.,  a  thousand  dispositions  and 
inclinations  into  the  soul  of  their  children,  of  which  the  latter 
are  unconscious,  and  which  direct  them,  without  their  know- 
ing it,  towards  an  end  they  know  not  of,  —  for  instance,  virtue, 
wisdom,  happiness.  Such  dispositions,  however,  are  really 
incorporated  in  the  soul  of  children,  are  blended  with  their 
natural  qualities,  become  proper  to  them,  and  are  later  truly 
spontaneous  principles  of  action  to  them.  In  this  case,  then, 
we  clearly  enough  see  how  an  intelligent  cause  might  origi- 
nally place  in  created  beings  certain  dispositions,  potencies,  or 
natural  habitudes,  which  should  be  inherent,  immanent,  and 
essential  to  them,  and  which  should  conduct  them  to  their 
destination  without  their  knowledge,  and  without  the  Creator 
needing  to  act  for  them  and  guide  them,  as  the  husbandman 


FINALITY  AND  INTENTION.  361 

the  plong-h.  A  thousand  instances,  derived  from  physiological 
and  moral  experience,  might  be  quoted  of  this  premeditated 
infusion  of  certain  principles  of  action  into  souls  that  are 
unconscious  of  them,  and  that  then  obey  them  spontaneously 
and  blindly.  And  men  make  use  of  this  power  as  well  for  evil 
as  for  good.  A  skilled  seducer,  for  instance,  will  know  how 
to  determine  in  an  innocent  mind  certain  unconscious  im- 
pulses that  will  lead  it  unwittingly  to  the  end  fixed  by  him  — 
namely,  towards  its  ruin  or  misfortune.  An  orator  or  a  poli- 
tician will  call  forth  in  crowds  commotions  which,  once  excited, 
will  lead  to  this  or  that  consequence,  foreseen  by  him  and  not 
by  them.  Thus  the  Creator  might  determine  in  bodies  or  in 
souls  certain  impulsions  or  tendencies  leading  them  inevitably 
to  the  end  fixed,  reserving  to  man  alone,  and  still  within  a 
limited  circle,  the  faculty  of  acting  like  Himself,  conformably 
to  a  premeditated  end.^ 

In  truth,  it  will  always  be  possible  to  oppose  hidden  quali- 
ties, which,  being  neither  mechanisms  nor  systems  of  thought, 
present  nothing  clear  to  the  mind,  and  to  say,  with  Descartes, 
that  we  only  comprehend  two  things  clearly  and  distinctly, 
thought  and  motion  (or  an}^  other  modification  of  space)  ;  and 
this  objection  is  at  bottom  that  of  Bayle,  who  opposes  the 
dynamism  of  Cudworth  from  the  point  of  view  of  Cartesian 
occasionalism.  But  this  point  of  view  cannot  be  that  of  the 
German  philosopher  we  are  discussing,  for  he  shows  himself 
opposed  to  every  species  of  mechanism,  whether  the  mechanism 
of  Epicurus  (that  without  God)  or  the  Cartesian  mechanism 
(that  with  God).  He  thus  necessarily  admits  something  like 
hidden  qualities,  under  the  names  of  fendericies,  instincts, 
inclinations,  inspiration,  enthusiasm.  He  has,  consequently, 
nothing  to  object  to  those  who  will  admit  the  same  hidden 
faculties,  on  condition  of  supposing  them  to  be  derived  and 

1  One  may  conceive  this  creation  of  impulsions  in  things  either  as  a  superero- 
gatory act  of  God,  adding  to  beings,  when  once  formed,  the  instincts  or  powers 
they  have  need  of,  or  else  (which  would  be  more  philosophical)  one  may  admit 
that  God  has  at  once  created  beings  and  their  instincts,  the  nature  of  things 
being  but  the  sum  of  the  powers  or  instincts  of  which  it  is  composed. 


362  BOOK  II.  CHAPTER   III. 

not  primitive  ;  and  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  explanati(  n 
of  these  notions  there  is  no  advantage  in  conceiving  these 
sorts  of  qualities  as  existing  by  themselves  in  place  of  being 
communicated  properties. 

There  are,  besides,  in  the  facts  quoted  by  the  author,  many 
differences  to  be  noticed.  One  might  even  dispute  regarding 
the  approximation  of  mechanical  tendency  and  instinct ;  but 
what  cannot  be  in  any  way  assimilated  is  the  fact  of  instinct 
and  that  of  inspiration. 

Instinct  is  a  phenomenon  entirely  blind,  routine,  machine- 
like, always  like  itself.  It  may  vary  more  or  less  under  the 
influence  of  circumstances  ;  but  as  these  modifications  are 
slow,  rare,  and  infinitely  little,  the  dominant  character  of 
instinct  is  no  less  monotony,  servile  obedience  to  a  blind 
mechanism.  Inspiration  is  of  quite  another  order  ;  its  proper 
character  is  invention,  creation.  Wherever  there  is  imitation, 
or  mechanical  reproduction  of  a  phenomenon  already  produced, 
we  refuse  to  recognise  the  character  of  inspiration.  The 
property  of  instinct  is  precisely  to  resemble  a  work  calculated 
and  arranged  beforehand.  Thus  the  bee,  in  choosing  the 
hexagonal  form  for  depositing  its  honey,  acts  precisely  as  an 
architect  would  do,  who  should  be  asked  to  construct  the 
most  pieces  possible  in  a  given  space.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  property  of  inspiration  is  in  nothing  to  resemble  calcula- 
tion, and  to  be  incapable  of  being  in  any  way  represented  by 
calculation.  For  instance,  when  a  poet  wishes  to  paint  a 
great  sentiment,  it  would  be  impossible  for  him  to  find  laws 
of  combination  permitting  him  to  attain  his  end ;  he  could 
not  say :  By  combining  words  in  such  a  way  I  shall  be  sub- 
lime. For  the  words  must  still  be  given  him ;  and  by  what 
means  could  he  find  such  words  rather  than  others?  In 
artificial  works  (and  what  renders  instinct  so  marvellous  is 
just  that  it  produces  such  works),  it  is  by  the  combination  of 
parts  that  we  succeed  in  producing  the  whole.  In  works 
of  art,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  the  whole  that  commands  the 
arrangement  of  the  parts.     For  instance,  although  a  musical 


FINALITY  AND  INTENTION.  363 

theme  is  necessarily  successive,  in  virtue  of  the  laws  of  time, 
yet  even  the  first  notes  are  dominated  by  the  entire  air ;  and 
one  cannot  imagine  a  musician  adding  note  to  note  in  order 
to  reach  an  end,  for  that  end  is  the  entire  air,  and  the  air  is 
in  the  first  notes  as  well  as  in  the  last.  No  doubt,  there  is 
even  in  inspiration  a  part  to  be  done  by  reflection,  calculation, 
and  science,  as  we  shall  show  immediately ;  but  the  essence 
of  inspiration  is  something  entirely  different,  and  cannot  be 
conceived  as  a  calculated  combination. 

These  observations  may  appear  at  first  sight  more  favour- 
able than  otherwise  to  the  objection  of  the  German  philoso- 
pher ;  but  our  aim  is  first  clearly  to  distinguish  inspiration 
from  blind  instinct,  two  things  that  this  philosopher  puts 
almost  on  the  same  line  as  proving  the  same  thing,  wherein 
he  deceives  himself.  No  doubt  the  fact  of  artistic  inspiration 
can  quite  prove  that  there  is  a  sort  of  finality  superior  to  the 
finality  of  foresight  and  calculation,  that  the  soul  attains 
its  end  spontaneously,  while  the  mind  laboriously  seeks  and 
combines  the  means  of  attaining  its  end.  Where  the  versifier 
employs  with  consummate  ability  all  the  resources  of  the  art 
of  versification,  to  leave  the  reader  cold  while  amusing  him,  — 
where  the  rhetorician  calls  to  his  aid  all  figures  made  to  order, 
to  persuade,  please,  and  move  according  to  rule,  — a  Corneille 
and  a  Demosthenes  find  in  their  heart  unexpected  words, 
sublime  turns,  whose  origin  they  themselves  cannot  explain, 
and  which  astonish  and  elevate  the  soul  of  the  spectators  and 
auditors,  and  soul  speaks  to  soul.  Where  shall  one  discovei 
the  like  of  Quil  mourut}  or,  Je  ne  te  hais  point  ?^  By  what 
process  ?  by  what  recipes  ?  And  how  superior  is  emotion  here 
to  calculation !  But  if  one  may  conclude  from  these  facts 
that  the  highest  finality  is  not  perhaps  that  whicli  resnlts 
from  a  deliberate  combination,  still  huw  can  we  confound 
this  inspiration,  in  which  the  ancients  saw  the  seal  of  the 
divine,  to  Ocmi',  with  a  blind  instinct,  with  the  mechanical 
and  routine  coiu-se  of  a  watch  that  goes  alone,  which  is  what 
1  Corneille,  Hora  -e,  act  ill.  scene  6.  2  Corneille,  Le  Cid,  act  iii.  scene  4. 


364 


BOOK  II.   CHAPTER  III. 


the  instinct  of  animals  resembles?  Inspiration  may  be 
superior  to  calculating  intelligence,  but  intelligence  remains 
very  superior  to  instinct.  The  soul  inspired  by  sentiment  is 
not  a  blind  activity.  It  is  conscious  of  itself;  it  has  a  vivid 
and  profound  intuition  of  its  end ;  it  is  quite  full  of  it ;  and 
it  is  precisely  this  vivid  sentiment  of  the  end  that  evokes 
in  it  its  own  realization.  In  this  case,  as  Hegel  says,  '  the 
end  realizes  itself.'  Instinct,  on  the  other  hand,  not  only  is 
ignorant  of  the  means,  but  of  the  end.  Far  from  creating 
anything,  it  does  nothing  but  repeat  and  imitate,  without  even 
knowing  that  it  imitates  what  has  always  been  done.  The 
first  animal  of  each  species  could  alone  be  truly  called  an 
inventor.  But  there  is  no  reason  to  attribute  to  it  in  prefer- 
ence to  its  posterity  such  a  superiority  of  genius.  For  if  it 
had  been  capable  of  such  an  innovation,  why  should  its  suc- 
cessors be  reduced  to  a  sterile  and  routine  imitation  ?  Doubt- 
less the  creation  of  instinct  supposes  genius ;  but  instinct  is 
not  genius,  and  is  even  the  opposite  of  it. 

Moreover,  we  have  hitherto  reasoned  on  the  hypothesis 
whereby  inspiration  would  only  be  a  purely  spontaneous  act, 
in  which  intelligence  should  have  no  part.  But  nothing  is 
more  contrary  to  the  truth.  Every  one  knows  the  old  dis- 
putes between  art  and  genius.  No  doubt  art  is  not  genius. 
Kules  do  not  suffice  to  make  masterpieces ;  but  who  does  not 
know  that  genius  is  only  complete  when  accompanied  b}^ 
art?  How  many  parts  of  the  beautiful  are  derived  from 
intelligence  and  science !  The  wise  arrangement  of  a  sub- 
ject, the  division  and  gradation  of  the  parts,  the  elimination 
of  useless  parts,  the  choice  of  times,  places,  circumstances,  the 
adaptation  of  the  style  to  the  manners  and  sentiments  of  the 
personages  —  these  for  the  dramatic  art.  The  investigation 
of  proofs,  their  distribution,  their  clever  gradation,  the  skilful 
interweaving  of  dialectic  with  the  pathetic,  the  accommoda- 
tion of  the  sentiments  and  motives  to  the  habits  and  disposi- 
tions of  the  auditory  —  these  for  the  art  of  oratory.  The 
combination  of  harmonies  or  colour's,  rhythm,  the  contrasts  of 


FINALITY  AND   INTENTION.  365 

light  and  shade,  the  laws  of  harmony  or  of  perspective  —  these 
for  music  and  painting.  In  architecture,  the  part  of  science 
is  greater  still ;  and  even  industry  comes  into  play.  Thus 
even  in  the  labour  of  inspiration,  science  and  art  —  that  is, 
calculation,  foresight,  and  premeditation  —  play  a  considera- 
ble part;  nay,  it  is  almost  impossible  rigidly  to  distinguish 
what  is  of  art  and  what  is  of  inspiration  itself.  No  doubt 
the  original  conception  of  a  character  like  that  of  the  Misan- 
thrope^ or,  in  another  class,  the  Olympian  Jupiter,  can  only  be 
referred  to  a  first  stroke  of  the  creative  imagination.  What 
means,  in  effect,  can  be  employed  to  conceive  a  primary  idea  ? 
At  the  very  most,  the  artist  may  place  himself  in  circum- 
stances favourable  for  invention.  But  the  primary  idea  once 
given,  what  is  it  that  fertilizes,  animates,  colours,  and  real- 
izes it  but  art,  always,  it  is  true,  accompanied  by  inspiration  ? 
Is  there  not  here  a  part  to  be  played  by  calculation  and 
thoughtful  combination?  Will  not  reflection,  for  instance, 
suggest  to  the  author  of  the  Misanthrope :  To  attain  the 
comic,  I  must  put  my  principal  personage  in  contradiction 
with  himself.  I  must  then  give  him  a  weakness,  and  what 
weakness  more  natural  than  that  of  love  ?  And  to  render  the 
contrast  more  striking,  and  the  drama  more  comical,  I  will 
make  him  love  a  coquette  without  soul,  who  will  play  "with 
him.  I  will  bring  them  together,  and  the  man  of  heart  shall 
humble  himself  before  the  selfish  and  frivolous  fine  lady. 
Besides,  this  coquette  must  be  a  perfect  woman  of  the  world ; 
and  to  depict  her  as  such  I  will  have  a  conversation  scene, 
where  I  will  paint  the  salons  in  all  their  charming  frivolity. 
That  Moliere  made  these  calculations,  or  others  like  them, 
cannot  be  doubted,  although  at  every  step  he  needed  genius 
—  that  is,  inspiration  —  to  realize  his  conceptions  ;  for  it  is  not 
enough  to  say,  I  will  have  talent,  —  the  great  thing  is  to  liave 
it.  But  talent  can  no  more  be  found  by  means  of  reflection 
than  genius.  Every  one  knows,  on  the  contrary,  that  to  seek 
talent  is  the  best  way  not  to  find  it.  In  music,  inspiration 
properly  so  caUed  plays  a  greater  part;  but  even  here  there 


366 


BOOK  II.  CHAPTER  III. 


are  skilful  combinations  that  may  be  the  result  of  reflection, 
and  produced  intentionall}-.  For  instance,  it  may  very  well 
be  the  case  that  it  was  after  reflection,  and  voluntarily,  that 
Mozart  resolved  to  accompany  the  amorous  serenade  of  Don 
Juan,  that  air  so  melancholy  and  touching,  with  the  playful 
refrain  that  inspired  some  well-known,  charming  verses  of 
Musset.  Donizetti  may  also  very  well  have  calculated  before- 
hand the  profound  effect  produced  on  the  heart  b}^  the  singing 
of  Lucia's  obsequies,  interrupted  by  Edgar's  marvellous  final 
air.  At  every  moment  one  may  find  in  the  arts  examples 
of  great  beauties  gained  by  calculation  and  reflection.  In 
Athalle,  for  instance,  the  introduction  of  choruses,  the  proph- 
ecy of  Jehoiada,  the  bringing  together  a  divine  child  and  an 
impious  queen ;  in  Horace,  the  idea  of  cutting  in  two  the 
narrative  to  produce  a  sudden  dramatic  change ;  in  the  De- 
scent from  the  Cross  at  Antwerp,  the  skilful  and  difficult 
combination  that  makes  all  the  personages  in  some  measure 
bear  or  touch  the  bod}'  of  Christ,  —  are  striking  examples 
of  beauties  desired,  premeditated,  and  prepared  by  esthetic 
science,  on  condition,  no  doubt,  of  finding  a  powerful  imagi- 
nation for  their  realization.  These  striking  examples  of  an 
intelligence  at  the  service  of  inspiration  might  incline  us  in 
favour  of  Schopenhauer's  theory,  that  makes  intelligence  the 
servant  of  the  will,  if  we  agreed  to  attribute  inspiration  to 
what  this  philosopher  calls  the  will ;  —  as  if  inspiration  itself 
were  not  already  a  sort  of  intelligence  ;  as  if  the  first  concep- 
tion, the  immediate  work  of  the  creative  imagination,  were 
not  also  an  act  of  intelligence  ;  as  if,  in  fine,  love  itself,  which 
impels  to  create,  to  engender,  as  Plato  says,  were  possible 
without  a  certain  view  of  the  object  loved.  All  that  can  be 
said  —  and  it  in  no  way  contradicts  the  doctrine  of  final  causes 
—  is  that  above  the  combining  and  calculating  intelligence, 
there  is  a  primary  form  of  superior  intelligence,  which  is  the 
condition  of  the  second,  and  which  may  be  called  creative. 

If,  then,  we  seek  in  experience  some  type  or  model  that 
may  give  us  an  analogical  idea  of  the  primary  activity,  we 


FINALITY   AND    INTENTION.  367 

will  not  refuse  to  admit  that  inspiration  is  that  which,  per- 
haps, in  fact,  comes  nearest  to  it.  At  this  elevation  intention 
becomes  lost  in  finality,  —  that  is,  the  means  confound  them- 
selves with  the  end  ;  but  far  from  such  a  conception  confining 
us  within  the  circle  of  nature,  it  is  only,  on  the  contrary,  by 
leaving  nature  that  we  can  conceive  such  an  identity  of  means 
and  ends.  It  is  the  property  of  nature,  on  the  other  hand,  to 
pass  by  the  one  to  the  attainment  of  the  other,  which  is  im- 
possible to  a  blind  force,  not  directed.  Foresight,  as  it  is 
manifested  in  the  secondary  substances,  is  not,  perhaps,  the 
highest  expression  of  finalit}" ;  but  blind  instinct  is  a  still  less 
faithful  exi^ression  of  it,  and  pure  mechanism  is  its  absolute 
negation. 

If,  moreover,  we  analyze  the  idea  of  intention,  we  shall 
find  in  it  two  elements :  —  1st,  The  art  of  willing  the  end, 
with  the  consciousness  that  we  will  it ;  2d,  The  choice  of 
means  to  attain  it.  But  in  the  phenomenon  called  inspira 
tion,  intention  exists  in  the  first  sense,  although  not  always  in 
the  second.  The  artist  will  express  what  he  has  in  his  soul, 
and  he  is  conscious  of  this  volition  ;  but  how  is  he  to  express 
what  he  has  in  his  soul  ?  He  does  not  know.  Does  it 
follow  that  a  higher  intelligence  would  know  no  more  ?  Is- 
what  is  unconscious  in  artistic  creation  a  necessary  element 
of  creative  genius?  On  what  ground  could  such  an  hypothesis 
be  maintained  ?  It  appears  that  the  highest  degree  of  genius 
is  just  that  which  has  the  completest  consciousness  of  its 
power.  As  there  is  more  consciousness  in  genius  than  in 
mere  instinct,  so  what  may  be  called  absolute  genius  should 
be  accompanied  by  absolute  consciousness. 

Supposing,  then,  that  there  is  a  supreme  act,  of  which 
artistic  inspiration  can  give  us  some  idea,  this  absolute  act 
should  be  not  the  act  of  a  blind  force,  or  of  a  fortuitous 
mechanism,  but  of  a  creative  intelligence,  inventing  at  once 
means  and  end  by  a  single  act,  and  in  which,  consequently, 
foresight  should  be  identical  with  immediate  conception.  It 
is  in  this  sense  that  it  mav  be  allowed  that  intention  is  not 


568 


BOOK   II.   CHAPTER   III. 


necessary  to  finality ;  not  that  it  is  absent,  as  in  ignorant 
instinct  and  in  the  blind  forces  of  nature,  but  rather  that  it 
has  become  useless,  because,  being  in  no  way  separated  from 
its  end,  conception  and  execution  are  for  it  but  one.  But  we 
will  return  to  these  ideas ;  this  is  not  yet  the  place  to  give 
them  all  their  development. 

This  first  objection  being  much  the  most  important,  we 
have  had  to  dwell  the  longer  upon  it ;  we  will  pass  more 
rapidly  over  those  that  follow. 

II.  The  German  author  appeals  against  the  intentionalist 
doctrine  to  what  he  calls  mathematical  finality,  without 
explaining  very  clearly  what  he  means  by  it.  No  doubt  he 
means  to  say  that,  to  render  any  regular  figure  possible  in 
geometry,  its  lines  must  be  arranged  in  a  certain  way;  but 
this  pre-arrangement  of  the  lines  in  relation  to  the  general 
figure  is  something  analogous,  not  to  say  similar,  to  the  ar- 
rangement of  the  members  in  the  organism ;  it  is  an  adapta- 
tion to  an  end.  Yet  in  this  case,  he  says,  no  one  supposes 
an  intentional  arrangement,  no  one  infers  a  wise  author,  who 
has  ordained  all  that,  conformably  to  the  end,  by  the  most 
simple  means.  Why,  according  to  this  author?  Because 
mathematical  figures  have  no  relation  to  our  convenience,  and 
their  fundamental  relations  are  absolutely  indifferent  to  us. 

There  is  here,  as  it  seems  to  us,  much  confusion  of  ideas. 
But  to  come  at  once  to  the  main  point,  we  may  say  that 
Kant,  from  whom  the  principles  of  the  objection  are  bor- 
rowed, has  himself,  with  his  usual  profundity,  furnished  the 
solution  of  them.  It  is,  that  in  mathematics  we  have  to  do 
not  with  the  existence  of  things,  but  their  possibility,  and, 
consequently,  there  can  be  here  no  question  of  cause  '  and 
effect.'  ^  This  is  why  Kant  gives  to  this  finality  the  name  of 
'  finality  without  an  end,'  which  equally  applies  to  esthetic 
finality.  Kant's  explanation  amounts  to  that  of  Aristotle, 
according  to  whom  mathematical  entities  are  fixed,  —  that  is, 
are  not  subject  to  generation.     But  where  there  is  no  genera- 

1  Critique  of  the  Judrjment,  §  Ixii.  note 


FINALITY  AND   INTENTION.  369 

tion,  there  is  no  cause  and  effect  (except  by  metonymy) ;  and 
where  there  is  no  cause  and  effect,  there  can  be  no  means  and 
end,  for  means  are  nothing  but  a  cause  fit  to  produce  a  certain 
effect,  whicli,  tlierefore,  is  called  an  end. 

If,  however,  instead  of  conceiving  geometrical  figures  as  pure 
xibstract  possibilities,  they  be  taken  as  concrete  forms,  which 
matter  really  assumes  under  determinate  conditions,  —  for 
instance,  in  crystallization,  —  there  will,  in  fact,  be  room  to 
inquire  how  certain  blind  materials  come  to  be  arranged  con- 
formably to  a  determinate  order ;  and  a  definite  reason  will 
evidenth'  be  needed  to  explain  why  they  take  this  arrange- 
ment rather  than  another,  since  particles  left  to  chance  would 
assume  a  thousand  combinations  before  hitting  on  those  simple 
figures  that  geometry  designs  and  studies.  In  this  case,  we 
will  be  entitled  to  suppose  that  these  molecules  move  as  if 
they  aimed  to  produce  a  determinate  geometrical  order;  and 
to  affirm  that  in  this  case  there  is  a  finality  without  intention, 
is  to  assume  precisely  what  is  in  question ;  for  it  does  not 
follow  as  of  course  that  any  cause  can  spontaneously,  and  with- 
out knowing  anything  of  what  it  does,  direct  its  motion  accord- 
ing to  a  regular  law  and  conformably  to  a  determinate  type. 

Thus  it  is  not  because  geometrical  proportions  and  relations 
have  no  reference  to  our  use,  as  Fortlage  supposes,  but  because 
they  are  pure  ideas,  that  we  do  not  assume  intentional  arrange- 
ments in  geometrical  figures.  But  as  soon  as  these  figures  are 
•objectively  realized  in  the  real  world,  we  raise  exactly  the 
same  question  as  regarding  the  most  elaborate  arrangements. 
Besides,  it  is  not  true  that  human  utility  is  the  sole  criterion 
of  finality  and  intentionality.  We  admire  the  structure  of 
animals  and  plants,  even  in  the  case  of  creatures  that  are  of 
no  use  to  us ;  and  if  bees'  honey  were  of  no  more  use  to  us 
than  their  wax,  it  would  be  enough  that  these  two  j^roducts 
are  useful  to  themselves  to  make  us  admire  the  industry  that 
yields  them.  Still  more,  we  recognise  finality  even  in  beings' 
hurtful  to  us,  and,  as  Voltaire  says,  the  very  fly  should  own 
that  the  spidei'  weaves  its  web  with  wondrous  skill. 


870  BOOK   II.   CHAPTER   III. 

TJius  it  is  the  internal  agreement  of  the  object,  and  not  its 
relation  to  ns,  that  determines  our  judgment  of  finality ;  and 
if,  in  place  of  conceiving  geometrical  figures  as  externally  self- 
existent,  we  saw  a  luminous  point  moving  in  space,  and  turning 
round  a  centre,  drawing  a  curved  line,  without  ever  increas- 
ing its  distance  in  relation  to  that  centre,  we  would  then 
seek  a  cause  for  this  motion,  and  could  not  conceive  it  except 
as  the  act  of  a  mind  and  an  intelligence. 

III.  It  is  the  very  rarity  of  the  fact  of  finality,  it  is  said^ 
that  makes  us  infer  a  cause  apart  from  nature,  and  an  inten- 
tional cause  analogous  to  our  own.  If  finality  were  displayed 
in  all  phenomena  like  causality,  we  would  have  no  more 
difficulty  in  attributing  the  one  than  the  other  to  the  powder 
of  nature  :  but  these  facts  being  scattered,  we  judge  nature  too 
feeble  to  produce  them,  and  think  it  necessary  to  have  recourse 
to  a  miracle  to  explain  them.  Fortlage,  in  this  connection, 
ingeniously  compares  this  distrust  of  nature  in  general  with 
the  misanthrope's  distrust  of  human  nature. 

Here,  again,  there  is  much  confusion  of  ideas.  The  ques- 
tion whether  the  cause  of  finality  is  within  or  without  nature 
is  not  the  same  as  this,  whether  that  causality  is  intentional 
or  blind.  Intentionality  and  transcendence  are,  as  we  have 
repeatedly  said,  two  different  things.  One  may  conceive  an 
immanent  natural  cause  (a  soul  of  the  world,  for  instance), 
which,  like  the  Providence  of  the  Stoics,  should  act  with 
wisdom  and  foresight.  One  may,  on  the  other  hand,  conceive 
a  transcendent  cause,  like  the  pure  act  of  Aristotle,  which 
should  act  on  nature  unconsciously,  and  by  a  sort  of  insensible 
attraction.  Thus  we  should  not  necessarily  exclude  intelli- 
gence from  finality  if  we  pr  tved  that  the  cause  of  finality  is 
within,  not  outside,  nature.  Consequently,  if  this  kind  of 
distrust,  with  which,  according  to  the  author,  the  forces  of 
nature  inspire  us,  were  to  disappear,  and  we  were  brought  to 
consider  it  as  the  sole  and  sufficient  cause  of  finality,  it  would 
still  remain  to  inquire  how  nature  can  attain  its  end  without 
knowing  it  —  how  it  can  have  adapted  means  to  ends,  while 


FINALITY  AND   INTENTION.  371 

knowing  nothing  of  either ;  and  the  hypothesis  of  a  finality 
without  foresight  would  still  remain  incomprehensible.  Thus, 
it  is  not  our  distrust  of  nature  that  compels  us  to  recognise 
intelligence  in  its  works. 

An  example  will  render  our  distinction  evident.  Suppose 
a  poet,  regarded  as  mediocre,  and  of  recognised  tameness, 
were  to  produce  by  chance  some  brilliant  work,  some  beauti- 
ful verses,  it  might  be  supposed  that  he  was  not  the  author 
of  his  work,  that  some  one  prompted  and  inspired  him, 
although,  in  reality,  there  is  nothing  impossible  in  genius 
being  manifested  only  in  sudden  leaps  and  intermittent 
flashes.  There  is  more  than  one  instance  of  a  poet  having 
produced  but  one  sublime  piece,  and  relapsing  into  the  night 
of  mediocrity.  But  if  this  poet,  on  the  other  hand,  were 
then  continuously  to  produce  a  succession  of  masterpieces, 
our  distrust  would  disappear,  and  we  would  no  longer  need 
to  seek  elsewhere  than  in  the  genius  of  the  poet  himself  the 
inspiring  principle  of  his  writings.  But  would  we  thereby 
have  in  the  least  degree  proved  that  genius  is  a  blind  force, 
not  self-possessed,  foreseeing  nothing,  and  acting  without 
light  and  thought  ?  So  nature  might  be  the  proper  cause  of 
its  products  without  our  being  entitled  to  draw  any  inference 
against  the  existence  of  an  intelligence  in  nature  itself. 

It  will,  no  doubt,  be  said  that,  experience  giving  us  no 
sign  of  the  immediate  presence  of  an  intra-mundane  intelli- 
gence, we  can  only  conceive  a  supreme  intelligence  by  sup- 
posing it  at  the  same  time  extra-mundane.  We  grant  it ; 
and  it  is  one  of  the  most  decisive  reasons  in  favour  of  the 
transcendence  of  a  first  cause.  But,  after  all,  the  question 
of  transcendence  raises  difiiculties  of  another  kind ;  and, 
therefore,  it  should  be  distinguished  from  that  of  an  intelli- 
gent first  cause.  For  instance,  the  difficulties  that  arise  from 
the  idea  of  creation  ex  nihilo,  those  which  arise  from  the 
idea  of  substance,  from  the  exact  distinction  between  the 
first  cause  and  secondary  causes,  are  independent  of  those 
that  are  raised  against   the   hypothesis   of  a   pre-ordainirg 


372 


BOOK  II.  CHAPTER  III. 


foresight.  Accordingl}-,  we  say  that  this  hypothesis  may  be 
disengaged  from  that  of  transcendence  —  that  it  rests  on  its 
own  reasons,  whatever  the  degree  of  intimacy  attributed  to 
the  first  cause  in  relation  to  nature. 

Let  us  now  add  that,  even  if  finality  were  as  universally 
diffused  through  nature  as  causality,  there  would  still  be  no 
occasion  to  set  aside  the  idea  of  a  contingency  of  nature, 
contmgeyitia  mundi ;  for  this  contingency  affects  causality  as 
well  as  finality.  Because  all  the  phenomena  of  nature  have 
a  cause,  it  does  not  follow  that  that  cause  is  immediately  the 
first  cause,  and  that  there  are  no  second  causes  ;  but  nature, 
being  by  the  very  definition  only  the  totality  of  second 
causes,  is  not  in  itself  its  own  cause.  Now,  if  finality  were 
universal,  like  causality,  it  would  simpl}^  follow  that  all  that 
we  call  cause  would  become  means,  all  we  call  effect  would 
become  end ;  but  the  chain  of  means  and  ends,  no  more  than 
that  of  causes  and  effects,  would  be  confounded  with  the  ab- 
solute, and  the  question  of  contingency  would  remain  intact. 

IV.  A  new  difficult}^  proposed  by  the  German  author  is 
that  the  hypothesis  of  an  intentional  finality  cannot  explain 
the  errors  of  nature,  and  the  groping  with  which  it  gradually 
advances  towards  its  end.  This  objection  has  already  been 
discussed  above ;  ^  we  need  not  refer  to  it.  Let  us  merely 
say  that,  if  the  idea  of  a  sovereign  and  absolute  wisdom 
excludes  the  idea  of  groping,  it  is  not  so  with  the  idea  of  a 
nature  created  by  sovereign  wisdom.  The  groping  or  grada- 
tion, in  fact,  may  be  the  only  means  that  a  nature  has  at  its 
disposal  to  express  the  absolute  perfection  of  the  creative 
act  that  gives  birth  to  it.  We  will  add  that,  if  nature  seems 
to  you  powerful  and  rich  enough  to  be  itself  declared  divine, 
a  fortiori  it  must  be  beautiful  enough  for  an  image,  shadow, 
or  expression  of  the  divine  act. 

V.  The  last  objection  is  particularly  interesting.  It  tends 
to  put  in  opposition  the  belief  of  God's  existence  to  the 
sentiment  of  nature,  such  as  men  feel  it  at  the  present  time. 

1  See  chap.  i.  p.  56. 


FINALITY  AND   INTENTION.  37S- 

It  seems  taat  to  love  nature  it  must  be  considered  as  divine, 
and  not  merely  as  the  artificial  work  of  the  Deity. 

No  doubt  it  would  be  a  great  exaggeration  to  say  that 
theism  is  irreconcilable  with  a  lively  sense  of  the  beauties  of 
nature.  Xowhere  have  these  beauties  been  more  eloquently 
described  than  in  the  writings  of  Fenelon,  Rousseau,  and  Ber- 
nardin  de  Saint-Pierre,  which  are  directly  intended  to  prove 
the  existence  of  a  Providence.  But  what  might  perhaps  be 
maintained  is  that  a  certain  manner  of  loving  nature,  and 
that  precisely  which  has  been  developed  in  our  age,  supposes 
another  religious  philosophy  than  that  of  the  Savoyard  vicar. 
The  old  theodicy,  it  will  be  said,  that  conceives  a  God  fabri- 
cating the  universe  as  a  watchmaker  makes  a  watch,  be-  / 
hoved  to  engender  an  entirely  similar  esthetic.  Nature,  to  be 
beautiful,  had  to  be  arranged,  cultivated,  combed,  pruned.  , 
The  beautiful  must  exclusively  consist  in  the  proportion  of 
parts,  in  a  harmonious  and  sweet  agreement :  everywhere  there 
were  required  in  works  of  art  plans  well  arranged  and  method- 
ically executed.  The  earth  was  only  a  machine  —  that  is, 
something  cold,  dry,  more  or  less  agreeable  in  parts,  but  with- 
out internal  life,  without  flame,  without  a  divine  spirit.  But 
since  a  new  philosophy  has  taught  us  the  divinity  of  nature, 
now  that  all  is  full  of  gods,  Trarra  ttAt/p?/  ^€(2)v,  the  grand  poetry 
of  things  has  been  revealed  to  us.  The  voice  of  the  ocean, 
the  roar  of  the  winds,  the  abrupt  depths  produced  by  th& 
elevation  of  the  mountains,  the  splendour  of  glaciers,  all  speak 
to  us  of  an  ever-acting,  ever-living  power,  that  has  not  retired 
into  its  solitude  after  having  acted  one  single  time,  we  know 
not  why,  but  which,  on  the  contrary,  is  always  here  in  com- 
munication with  us,  animating  this  nature  that  is  called  dead, 
but  is  not,  since  it  speaks  to  us  with  accents  so  pathetic,  and 
penetrates  us  with  seductions  so  intoxicating.  Here  is  God; 
and  Goethe  did  not  mean  to  lessen  Him  when,  like  the  old 
Indians,  he  saw  Him  everywhere  in  the  rocks,  forests,  lakes, 
in  that  sublime  sky  —  in  that  totality,  in  short,  of  which  He 
is  the  eternal  soul,  the  inexhaustible  source.     The  theist,  on 


374  BOOK  II.   CHAPTER  III. 

the  other  hand,  only  admires  His  cold  and  pale  image,  the 
wretched  copy  of  His  eternal  perfections,  —  an  insipid  work 
that  He  has  created  without  knowing  why,  tired,  no  doubt, 
of  His  immoveable  eternity. 

This  whole  argumentation  supposes  that,  on  the  hypothesis 
of  a  supra-mundane  and  intelligent  cause,  nature  would  be  no 
more  than  a  machine,  and  the  Creator  could  only  be  a  work- 
man, which  would  be  to  compare  the  divine  activity  with  the 
lowest  human  occupations  —  that  is,  with  handicrafts.  These 
are  very  exaggerated  consequences,  derived  from  a  metaphor. 
The  comparison  of  the  universe  to  a  watch  is  one  of  the  most 
convenient  presented  to  the  mind,  and  philosophy  is  no  longer 
possible  if  every  figure  is  forbidden  on  pain  of  being  taken 
literally.  The  mechanism  existing  in  the  universe,  and  which 
may  be  considered  by  itself  abstractly,  warrants  such  a  com- 
parison, but  does  not  exclude  others.  Because  the  Author  of 
things  has  had  regard  to  utility  for  His  creatures,  it  does  not 
follow  that  He  has  not  had  beauty  in  view  also.  As  Leibnitz 
has  said,  mechanism  does  not  exclude  metaphysic.  The 
architect  who  builds  a  temple  like  the  Parthenon  may  have 
made  a  sublime  work  while  occupying  himself  with  its  solidity. 
Whether  immanent  or  transcendent,  intentional  or  blind,  the 
Cause  of  nature  has  been  obliged  to  employ  material  means  to 
express  His  thought,  and  the  just  combination  of  these  means, 
to  make  a  stable  and  solid  work,  is  imposed  quite  as  much  on 
the  God  of  pantheism  as  on  the  God  of  creation ;  and,  con- 
versely, the  employment  of  these  material  means,  wisely 
combined,  no  more  forbids  the  beautiful  or  the  sublime  to  the 
God  of  creation  than  to  the  God  of  pantheism.  If,  then, 
the  adherents  of  a  transcendent  and  intentional  cause  have 
specially  attached  themselves  to  examples  drawn  from 
mechanics,  it  is  not  that  they  are  more  bound  than  others  to 
maintain  that  everything  in  nature  is  mechanism,  but  that 
there  is  here  one  of  those  privileged  facts  in  which  is  strikingly 
manifested  the  proper  character  of  an  intentional  cause  ;  and 
philosophy,  as  well  as  the  sciences,  is  entitled  to  appeal  to 


FINALITY  AND  INTENTION.  375 

the  most  dec.sive  facts,  even  though  they  should  appear  low 
to  a  false  imagination.  And  besides,  when  it  concerns  the 
mechanism  of  the  universe  and  the  conception  of  the  system 
of  the  world,  who  will  venture  to  say  that  that  is  a  small 
matter,  and  that  the  admiration  which  such  a  work  must 
inspire  is  really  unworthy  of  the  Divine  Being  ? 

Thus  those  who  have  said  that  the  world  is  a  machine,  are 
in  no  way  deprived  of  the  right  to  say  that  it  is  a  poem  as 
well.  Wherein  does  the  one  exclude  the  other?  The  system 
of  the  world  for  geometricians  is  certainly  only  a  mechanism. 
Does  any  one  believe,  however,  that  a  geometrician  will  there- 
fore become  insensible  to  the  beauties  of  the  starry  heaven 
and  the  infinite  immensity  ?  Will  it  be  disputed  that  a 
building,  in  order  to  stand,  needs  to  obey  the  laws  of  the 
exactest  and  driest  mechanics  ?  The  gigantic  arches  of  Gothic 
cathedrals  are  not  supported  by  miracle.  It  is  not  angels  or 
hidden  powers  tliat  support  their  stones,  but  the  abstract  and 
dead  laws  of  gravitation.  And  yet,  is  the  mysterious  grandeur 
of  these  mystical  monuments  less  overwhelming,  divine,  and 
pathetic  on  that  account?  The  soul  of  the  architect  has 
manifested  or  embodied  itself  in  these  dumb  stones,  but  it  has 
only  been  able  to  do  so  by  observing  the  laws  of  mechanics. 
Why  cannot  the  divine  soul,  if  we  may  use  such  an  expres- 
sion, have  also  passed  into  its  work,  whether  mechanical  or 
not?  Is  it  necessary  that  the  architect's  soul  be  present  in 
the  building  substantially  in  order  that  it  may  be  truly  there  ? 
Is  there  not  a  kind  of  ideal  presence,  the  thought  of  the 
Creator  being  communicated  to  His  work,  and  existing  apart 
from  Him,  but  by  him?  Will  it  be  said  that  the  divine 
hymn  of  Stradella  has  not  retained  something  of  the  soul  of 
its  author,  although  he  is  no  longer  here  to  sing  it  ?  Thus, 
that  nature  be  beautiful,  touching,  and  sublime,  it  is  not 
necessary  that  God  be  present  in  it  substantially:  it  is 
enough  that  He  is  there  by  representation,  as  a  prince  is 
present  wherever  his  ambassador  is,  and  communicates  to 
him  his  dignity,  without  needing  to  be  present  in  person. 


376 


BOOK  II.   CHAPTER  III. 


Thus  the  esthetic  objection  proves  nothing  in  favour  of  an 
instinctive  and  against  an  intentional  finality.  Nature,  were 
it  only  a  vast  mechanism,  might  still  be  beautiful,  as  express- 
ing a  divine  thought,  just  as  the  succession  of  the  sounds  of 
an  instrument  may  be  something  sublime,  although,  for  the 
physicist,  it  is  only  in  reality  a  purely  mechanical  combination. 
But  we  have  seen,  besides,  that  the  doctrine  of  transcendent 
and  intentional  finalit}^  is  by  no  means  obliged  to  reduce 
everything  to  mechanism.  Nature  may  be  composed  of  forces 
without  being  itself  the  supreme  and  absolute  force.  In  fine, 
the  species  and  degree  of  the  participation  of  things  in  the 
Divine  Being  is  one  question,  and  intelligence  in  the  ordain- 
ing cause  is  another.  Were  the  world  nothing  but  the  phe- 
nomenon of  God,  there  would  still  be  room  to  inquire  whether 
it  is  a  phenomenon  developed  in  the  way  of  blind  instinct, 
or  of  enlightened  reason.  But  on  the  latter  view  it  is  not 
apparent  why  nature  should  be  less  beautiful  than  on  the 
former. 

In  a  word,  the  fundamental  error  —  the  Trpwrov  i//eu8os  of 
this  whole  otherwise  very  learned  discussion  —  is  the  perpet- 
ual confusion  between  two  distinct  questions,  that  of  imma- 
nence and  that  of  intentionality,  immanence  not  excluding 
intentionality  and  wisdom  in  the  cause ;  and,  secondly,  the 
vagueness  and  indecision  in  which  this  term  immanence, 
interiority,  which  is  imputed  to  the  first  cause,  is  left.  For 
immanence  is  not  absolutely  denied  by  anj^  one ;  the  only 
question  is  as  to  the  degree,  but  the  degree  is  not  fixed. 

Other  difficulties  have  recently  been  raised  among  us 
against  the  hypothesis  of  an  intelligent,  and  in  favour  of  an 
instinctive,  finality.  Here,  for  instance,  is  how  a  contempo- 
rary philosopher  expresses  himself:  'We  can  only  conceive 
in  three  ways  the  relation  established  in  a  system  of  phenom- 
ena between  the  end  and  the  means.  Either,  in  effect,  the 
end  exerts  an  external  and  mechanical  action  on  the  means ; 
or  that  action  is  exerted  not  by  the  end  itself,  but  by  a  cause 
that  knows  and  desires  to  realize  it;  or,  finally,  the  means 


FINALITY  AND   INTENTION.  377 

arrange  themselves  in  the  fit  order  to  realize  the  end.  The 
first  hypothesis  is  absurd,  since  the  existence  of  the  end  is 
posterior  in  time  to  that  of  the  means ;  tlie  second  is  useless 
and  blends  with  the  third,  for  the  cause  to  which  recourse  is 
had  is  only  a  means  not  essentially  differing  from  the  others, 
and  to  which  is  accorded,  by  an  arbitrary  preference,  the 
spontaneity  denied  to  them.'  ^ 

In  this  passage  it  must  be  confessed  that  the  author  of  tliis 
objection  frees  himself  very  easily  from  a  traditional  doctrine, 
defended  by  the  greatest  spiritualist  and  religious  philosophers. 
It  will  not  easily  be  allowed  that  the  doctrine  whereby  intelli- 
gence co-ordinates  the  means,  is  reducible  to  that  whereby  '  the 
means  arrange  themselves  in  the  fit  order  to  realize  their  end.' 
May  we  not  here  say  with  Fenelon  :  '  What  is  stranger  than  to 
imagine  stones  that  grow  —  that  come  out  of  the  quarr}',  that 
ascend  upon  each  other,  leaving  no  space,  that  carry  with 
them  the  cement  to  unite  them,  that  arrange  themselves  so  as 
to  provide  apartments,  that  receive  beams  above  them  to  roof 
in  the  work '  ?  Why,  if  I  say  that  an  architect  has  chosen 
and  foreseen  the  means  necessary  for  building,  is  it  as  if  I 
said  that  these  means  all  alone  arranged  themselves  to  build 
the  house  ?  To  say  that  intelligence  is  only  itself  a  means 
like  the  others,  is  even  a  very  inexact  expression.  For  can 
that  be  called  a  means  that  serves  to  discover  means  —  to 
choose  and  distribute  them?  But  even  if  so  improper  an 
expression  were  admitted,  the  question  would  remain  the  same 
as  before  —  it  would  still  be  the  question,  whether  the  first 
means,  and  the  condition  of  all  the  others,  is  not  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  end  and  the  enlightened  choice  of  the  subordinate 
means.  At  least  it  would  be  necessary  to  distinguish  between 
the  principal  and  the  secondary  means,  the  one  being  the  con- 
dition sine  qua  non  of  all  the  others.  Thus  nothing  would 
yet  have  been  proved.  To  maintain  that  '  knowledge  only 
produces  action  by  accident,^  is  one  of  the  strangest  doctrines 
that  can  be  maintained  in  metaphysic;  for  it  would  follow 
1  Lachelier,  Du  fondement  de  I'induction,  p.  96. 


378  BOOK  II.   CHAPTER  III. 

that,  precisely  ou  the  hypothesis  of  intelligence,  actions  would 
be  fortuitous^  —  that  the  doctrine  of  Leibnitz  would  be  the 
doctrine  of  chance,  as  well  as  that  of  Epicurus.  The  reason 
given  for  this  paradox  is  as  unsubstantial  as  the  opinion  itself 
is  singular.  For  it  is  said  intelligence  can  only  conceive  an 
end  if  feeling  already  impels  us  to  it;  thus  it  is  useless. 
Every  phenomenon  can  only  be  the  result  of  a  tendency. 
The  knowledge  that  is  added  to  the  tendency  adds  nothing  to 
it.  I  grant  that  the  tendency  towards  an  end  needs  no  intelli- 
gence ;  but  between  the  tendency  and  the  end  there  is  an 
interval,  —  there  are  intermediaries,  middle  terms  that  we  call 
means.  The  question  then  is,  whether  the  tendency  towards 
the  ends  suffices  to  explain  the  choice  and  adaptation  of  the 
means.  This  is  what  the  author  does  not  take  the  trouble  to 
prove,  while  it  is  the  true  point  of  the  difficulty. 

Tendency  is  one  thing,  'preordination  is  another.  To  tend 
towards  an  end  is  not  synonymous  with  acting  for  an  end. 
These  two  finalities  must  be  distinguished.  The  one  might 
be  called  finality  ad  quod,  the  other  finality  propter  quod. 

Hunger,  for  instance,  is  a  tendency.  It  is  not  the  same 
thing  as  the  industry  that  finds  food.  And  if  it  be  said  that 
the  pursuit  of  food  is  only  itself  the  result  of  a  tendency,  — 
that,  for  instance,  the  animal  goes  towards  what  procures  it 
pleasure,  the  insect  towards  the  flower  to  which  its  smell  or 
sight  leads  it,  —  it  is  not  perceived  that  the  question  just  is, 
how  the  particular  tendency  that  impels  it  to  satisfy  a  certain 
sense  is  exactly  in  agreement  with  the  general  tendency  that 
impels  it  to  desire  preservation. 

Let  us  take,  for  instance,  the  love  of  glory  in  a  young  man. 
This  end  can  only  be  attained  by  the  successive  satisfaction  of 
a  multitude  of  partial  tendencies ;  and  the  problem  is  now 
all  these  partial  tendencies  shall  be  subordinated  to  me 
dominant  tendency.  In  youth,  in  point  of  fact,  there  is  an 
immensity  of  other  tendencies,  which  by  no  means  harmonize 
with  the  tendency  towards  glory,  and  which  are  even  very 
contrary  to  it ;  but  it  is  the  intellect  and  the  will  that  exclude 


FINALITY    A.ND   INTENTION.  379 

the  one  to  satisfy  the  others.  How  does  this  elimination  take 
place  in  brute  and  unconscious  agents  ?  How  does  the  brute 
cause,  imbued  with  innumerable  tendencies  towards  an  infinite 
number  of  objects,  only  obey  those  of  them  that  conduct  it 
to  objects  useful  for  its  end  ?  For  example,  how  does  the 
vital  force,  or  whatever  cause  produces  the  organism,  being  the 
subject  of  a  thousand  chemical,  physical,  and  mechanical  ten- 
dencies, which  could  determine  millions  of  possible  combina- 
tions, exclude  among  all  these  combinations  those  that  do  not 
contribute  to  the  end?  And  to  say  that  it  is  by  a  sort  of 
groping  that  nature  discards  successively  the  bad  chances  that 
arise,  and  ends  by  hitting  the  happy  chance  that  satisfies  the 
problem,  would  be  to  prove  too  much ;  for  this  explanation 
avails  not  against  intentionality,  but  against  finality  itself. 

To  sum  up.  There  is  a  common  tendency  at  present  in 
several  schools  to  adopt  a  middle  theory  between  the  Epicurean 
theory  of  fortuitous  combinations  and  the  Leibnitzian  of  intel- 
ligent choice.  This  is  the  theory  of  instinctive  finality,  some- 
times arbitrarily  called  the  Will.  This  mongrel  theory  is 
nothing  else  than  the  old  theory  of  hylozoism,  which  attributes 
to  matter  sympathies,  antipathies,  affinities,  preferences,  — 
things  that  are  all  absolutely  opposed  to  the  idea  of  it.  All 
that  can  be  attributed  to  matter,  as  regards  power,  is  the 
capacity  to  produce  motion.  As  to  the  direction  of  the 
motion,  and  the  choice  between  the  possible  combinations  of 
motion,  it  is  an  indefensible  anthropomorphism  to  explain  it 
by  a  second  mysterious  view,  that  consists  in  seeing  without 
seeing,  in  choosing  without  knowing,  and  combining  without 
thinking.  Say  simply  that  the  adaptations  of  matter  are  only 
appearances  and  results ;  but  to  attribute  to  nature  a  desire 
without  light,  an  intelligence  without  intelligence,  an  esthetic 
and  artistic  faculty  that  could  dispense  with  consciousness  and 
knowledge,  is  to  take  metaphors  for  realities,  —  fjL€Ta(j>opi.Ku>^ 

The  only  substantial  thing  remaining  in  the  objections  that 


380  BOOK  II.   CHAPTER  III. 

may  be  made  against  intentioiialism  is,  that  our  vision  alwaya 
becomes  obscure  and  dim  when  we  come  to  the  mode  of  action 
of  the  first  cause,  as  our  experience  only  gives  us  to  know 
second  causes.  Thus  no  other  course  is  left  to  us  than  to  say 
nothing  at  all  about  it,  as  the  Positivists  do,  or  to  speak  of  it 
by  comparison  with  ourselves,  always  endeavouring  to  exclude 
whatever  is  incompatible  with  the  idea  of  the  perfect  and 
absolute.  There  is  no  other  method  of  determining  anything 
of  this  first  cause  than  the  negative,  excluding  from  God  what- 
ever belongs  to  the  finite  character  of  the  creation  ;  and  the 
analogical  method,  attributing  to  God,  ratiorie  absoluti,  every- 
thing with  a  character  of  reality  and  perfection.  Every  other 
method,  pretending  to  discover  a  priori  the  attributes  of  the 
primary  being,  is  a  pure  illusion ;  and  even  those  who  con- 
ceive this  first  cause  as  an  instinct,  and  not  an  intelligence, 
do  yet  but  borrow  their  type  from  experience.^ 

Thus  it  will  be  admitted  that  all  foresight  similar  to  that 
of  man,  and  which  implies  time  and  difficulty,  can  have  no 
place  in  the  absolute.  Is  that  to  say,  however,  that  all  fore- 
sight is  absent  from  it,  as  in  blind  instinct  ?  Or  is  there  not 
something  that  represents  what  we  would  call  foresight,  if  the 
divine  act  were  translated  into  human  language  ?  This  is  the 
question. 

Let  us  examine,  then,  more  closely  this  idea  of  foresight, 
as  it  occurs  in  human  consciousness.  It  seems  to  imply  two 
things  incompatible  with  the  absolute:  —  1st,  The  idea  of  pre- 
existing matter,  whose  laws  and  properties  must  be  mastered, 
and  at  the  same  time  utilized ;  2d,  The  idea  of  time. 

1.  Why  has  man  need  of  foresight  in  preparing  for  the 
ends  he  pursues?  Is  it  not  because  he  finds  before  him  a 
nature  which,  not  having  been  made   exclusively  for  him, 

1  The  learned  philosopher  whose  opinion  we  have  just  discussed,  will  perliaps 
say  that  in  the  passage  quoted  the  question  is  only  as  to  nature,  and  not  as  to 
the  first  cause.  But  no  one  maintains  that  nature  as  such  is  an  intelligent 
cause;  it  is  meant  only  of  the  first  cause.  In  denying,  then,  absolutely  that 
finality  is  directed  by  intelligence,  the  author  by  imulication  makes  his  ilenial 
bear  on  the  first  cause. 


hjjality  and  intemign.  381 

presents  a  multitude  of  bodies  submissive  to  laws  which,  in 
their  actual  form,  do  not  in  any  way  promote  our  coiivenience, 
and  are  even  oftener  hurtful  than  useful  to  us,  so  that  nature 
might  have  been  as  often  presented  under  the  aspect  of  a 
step-mother  as  of  a  beneficent  mother.  Man  thus  finding 
resistance  in  external  forces,  is  obliged  to  calculate  in  order 
to  overcome  this  resistance,  and  to  make  it  subserve  liis 
designs.  No  doubt,  indeed,  given  a  determinate  end,  and 
pre-existing  matter  not  prepared  for  that  end,  this  matter  can 
only  be  adapted  by  foresight,  which  is  nothing  but  the  recip- 
rocal of  experience.  But  could  such  a  notion  be  compre- 
hended in  an  absolute  cause,  —  absolute  mistress  of  the  possible 
as  of  the  real,  —  and  which,  being  able  to  produce  all  by  a 
sovereign  fiat,  has  no  difficulty  to  foresee,  no  obstacle  to 
surmount,  no  matter  to  accommodate  to  its  plans? 

On  this  first  point,  we  reply  that  there  is  no  necessary  con- 
nection between  the  idea  of  foresight  and  that  of  pre-existing 
matter.  In  fact,  when  I  pursue  an  end,  I  can  attain  it  either 
by  employing  means  that  are  not  at  my  disposal,  or  by  creat- 
ing the  means  themselves  ;  and  although  in  the  case  of  man 
this  creation  of  means  is  never  other  than  metaphorical,  as 
the  matter  pre-exists,  it  is  clear  that  the  operation  would  not 
change  its  nature,  if,  in  place  of  producing  means  by  borrow- 
ing them  from  nature,  I  were  endued  with  the  faculty  of 
absolutely  creating  them.  For  instance,  to  attain  some  end, 
—  say,  to  make  a  metre  to  remain  without  alteration  during  so 
many  years,  —  I  need  a  metal  hard  enough  not  to  change  dur- 
ing that  number  of  years,  capable  of  resisting  a  certain  degree 
of  temperature,  and  which  has  so  little  marketable  value  as 
not  to  tempt  cupidity ;  and  not  finding  this  metal  in  nature, 
I  produce  it  by  the  aid  of  certain  combinations.  Is  it  not 
evident  that  if  I  could  produce  it  immediately,  the  operation 
would  remain  the  same?  and  this  matter,  once  created,  would 
still  have  to  be  put  in  relation  to  the  end,  by  adapting  it,  so 
that  the  creation  of  the  means  in  no  way  excludes  the  adap- 
tation of  the  means.    Thus,  granting  that  a  given  effect  is  an 


382  BOOK  li     CHAPTER  III. 

eud  (which  is  the  hypothesis  allowed  at  present  by  comtnon 
consent),  the  production  of  the  fit  matter  for  this  end  is  as 
much  the  effect  of  foresight  as  the  adaptation  of  it  in  this 
manner  would  be.  For,  first,  the  production  requires  the 
adaptation  besides  ;  and,  in  the  second  place,  that  production 
itself  is  already  adaptation,  for  we  must  first  choose  this 
matter,  and  then  give  it  tlds  form.  Omnipotence  being  able 
to  create  every  kind  of  matter  without  end,  to  create  those 
that  contribute  to  the  end,  and  not  others,  is  itself  an  act  of 
adaptation  ;  and,  so  far  as  the  previous  conception  of  the  end 
should  have  determined  this  creation  and  not  another,  it  is- 
what  we  would  call  an  act  of  foresight. 

2.  To  what  extent,  however,  can  the  term  foresight,  or 
intention,  be  here  employed  to  represent  the  creative  act? 
This  question  may  still  be  asked.  The  creative  act  is 
absolutely  one  and  indivisible ;  and,  consequently,  there  can 
be  no  distinction  between  a  consequent  and  an  antecedent 
volition.  That  act  not  being  in  time,  there  is  neither  a  j^o^i 
nor  an  ante  ;  and  our  youngest  scholars  know  that  prescience 
or  prevision  is  only  an  immediate  vision.  That  is  true  ;  but 
if,  on  the  other  hand,  the  act  be  considered,  not  in  its  super- 
natural origin,  but  from  the  point  of  view  of  nature  which 
is  subject  to  generation,  the  act  will  be  decomposed  into 
diverse  elements,  and  so  far  as  the  last  is  called  end  and 
recognised  as  such,  the  antecedents  will  be  ^preordained  in 
relation  to  that  end ;  and  if  the  whole  act  be  considered  as 
the  act  of  an  immediate  knowledge  or  vision,  the  antecedents^ 
relatively  to  the  consequents,  will  be  legitimately  called  acts 
of  prevision.  This  will  simply  mean  that  no  blind  cause 
can  have  produced  such  acts ;  that  they  are  acts  of  reason  and 
of  absolute  reason ;  and  that  this  absolute  reason,  so  far  as  it 
is  regarded  in  its  effects,  acts  as  if  it  were  endued  with  fore- 
sight, prescience,  and  intention. 

We  do  not  hesitate  to  declare  that  the  doctrine  of  an 
adequate  conception  of  the  absolute  in  the  human  mind  can- 
not be  maintained  in  philosophy.     To  say  that  things  occur 


FINALITY  AND   INTENTION.  SSS 

iu  the  divine  nature  exactly  in  the  way  we  conceive  them, 
would  be  to  pretend  that  we  can  see  God  face  to  face,  which^ 
according  to  theology,  is  only  possible  in  the  future  life. 
We  only  know  God,  according  to  Bacon,  by  a  refracted  7-ay, 
which  evidentl}'  implies  under  a  point  of  view  that  modifies 
the  object,  —  in  other  words,  in  a  symbolic  manner.  Thus  we 
are  not  far  from  admitting  with  Kant  that  the  doctrine  of 
intentional  finality  is  a  doctrine  relative  to  the  mode  of  rep- 
resentation of  the  human  mind,  a  hypothesis.  Things  occur, 
we  say,  as  if  a  supreme  wisdom  had  regulated  the  order  of 
things.  In  these  terms  I  do  not  believe  that  any  philosopher 
can  dispute  the  results  of  Kant's  criticism.  For  what  phi- 
losopher would  ever  dare  to  say,  I  know  God  as  He  is  in  Him- 
self? And  yet  this  is  what  must  be  said,  if  it  be  not 
granted  that  all  our  conceptions  of  God  have  something 
relative  and  subjective  belonging  to  the  imperfection  of  our 
faculties. 

But  while  Kant  absolutely  maintains  the  subjectivity  of 
human  conceptions,  and,  enclosing  us  within  an  impassable 
circle,  leaves  beyond  it  only  an  absolutely  indeterminate  Xy 
we  admit,  on  the  other  hand,  that  these  conceptions  (when 
they  are  the  results  of  the  right  use  of  our  faculties)  are  in 
strict  relation  to  things  as  they  are  in  themselves,  as  the- 
stick  broken  in  the  water  strictly  corresponds  to  the  real 
stick,  as  the  apparent  heavens  enable  astronomers  to  discover 
the  laws  of  the  real  heavens.  By  analogy  we  maintain  that, 
if  the  highest  manner  of  humanly  conceiving  the  first  cause- 
of  finality  is  the  hypothesis  of  a  supreme  wisdom,  this  con- 
ception, to  him  who  could  penetrate  to  the  deepest  foundation 
of  things,  would  be  strictly  translated  into  an  attribute  corre- 
sponding to  the  perfect  being,  so  t\iQ,i  goodness.,  ivi^doi/i,  justice^ 
and,  in  general,  what  are  called  the  moral  attributes  of  God^ 
are  not  mere  names  relative  to  our  way  of  feeling,  but  sym- 
bols, approximations  more  and  more  faithful  to  the  absolute 
essence,  considered  in  its  relation  to  sensible  things. 

Consequently  these    approximations  (as   symbols   of  the 


:384  BOOK  li    CHAPTER  III. 

absolute),  assuming  an  objective  and  ontological  character 
not  possessed  by  pure  poetic  fictions,  wliich  are  absolutely 
subjective,  these  approximations  should  be  pushed  as  far  as 
possible,  taking  most  carefully  into  account  the  two  data  of 
the  problem,  —  on  the  one  hand,  the  facts  to  be  explained ;  on 
the  other,  the  nature  of  the  absolute.  Thus,  foresight,  being 
given  as  the  only  attribute  intelligible  to  us  that  can  explain 
the  facts  of  finality,  we  ought,  on  the  other  hand,  to  free  it 
from  all  that  is  incompatible  with  the  idea  of  the  absolute, 
and  the  residue  of  this  operation  will  be  the  most  adequate 
possible  expression,  humanly  speaking,  of  the  supreme  cause 
of  finality. 

For  instance,  there  is  in  human  foresight  a  part  that 
evidently  belongs  to  the  imperfection  of  the  creature  — ' 
namely,  effort,  groping,  progressive  and  successive  elaboration. 
We  are  not,  then,  to  imagine  the  absolute  as  commencing  by 
conceiving  an  end,  then  seeking  means  to  realize  it.  then 
finding  them,  and  putting  them  successively  in  operation. 
But  is  the  idea  of  foresight  bound  to  these  accidents  that 
are  peculiar  to  human  imperfection  ?  We  may  apply  to  the 
attribute  of  the  divine  foresight  what  is  habitually  said  of 
reasoning  in  God.  Does  God  reason?  No,  it  is  said,  if  by 
that  is  meant  that  God  seeks  to  prove  to  Himself  a  truth  He 
did  not  know,  and  that  He  only  discovers  the  truth  step  by 
step.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  if  He  sees  all  truths  at  a  single 
glance,  it  is  still  the  case  that  He  sees  them  in  their  depend- 
ence and  objective  subordination.  He  sees  the  consequence 
in  the  principle,  and  distinct  from  the  principle ;  but  this  is 
the  essence  of  reasoning.  It  is  the  same  with  foresight. 
God  sees  all  at  one  glance,  but  He  sees,  the  means  as  distinct 
from  the  end,  and  as  being  subordinate  to  it,  and  that  is  the 
essence  of  foresight.  From  the  side  of  God  there  is  thus  only 
a  single  act :  from  the  point  of  view  of  things  there  are  two 
—  namely,  the  act  that  perceives  the  end,  and  the  act  that 
distinguishes  the  means.  Consequently,  placing  ourselves  in 
the  point  of  view  of  things,  and  by  analogy  with  ourselves, 


FINALITY  AND   INTENTION.  385 

we  will  call  foresight  the  view  of  the  end,  as  it  suggests  the 
creation  of  the  menus,  or  the  view  of  the  means,  as  it  leads 
to  the  realization  of  the  end.  Thus  it  is  that,  in  the  single 
act  of  the  divine  volition,  theologians  have  been  able  to 
distinguish  three  distinct  acts,  —  an  antecedent  volition,  a 
consequent  volition,  and  a  total  volition,  —  as  mathematicians 
decompose  a  given  force  into  hypothetical  forces,  of  which 
it  would  be  the  result. 

Thus  the  doctrine  of  the  NoS?,  or  of  intentional  finality, 
has  for  us  no  other  meaning  than  this,  that  intelligence  is  the 
highest  and  most  approximate  cause  we  can  conceive  of  a 
world  of  order.  All  other  causes,  chance,  laws  of  nature, 
blind  force,  instinct,  as  symbolic  representations,  are  beneath 
the  truth.  If,  however,  it  be  maintained,  with  the  Alexan- 
drians, that  the  true  cause  is  still  beyond, — namely,  beyond 
intelligence,  beyond  volition,  beyond  love, —  this  may  be  quite 
true,  nay,  we  risk  nothing  in  allowing  that  it  is  certain ;  for 
the  words  of  human  speech  are  all  inferior  to  the  essence  of 
the  absolute.  But  since  this  supreme  and  final  reason  is 
absolutely  beyond  our  grasp,  it  is  useless  to  speak  of  it ;  and 
we  have  only  to  do  with  the  highest  manner  of  conception  we 
can  attain.     It  is  in  this  sense  we  say  with  Anaxagoras :  Noi? 

Travra  SieKocrfirjcre.^ 


1  The  philosopher  whom  we  have  discussed  above  (p.  377)  has  addressed  to 
us  the  following  correction,  which  our  readers  will  peruse  with  interest :  — 

'  Favour  me  regarding  the  criticism  that  is  applied  to  me.  When  I  said  that 
knowledge  only  produces  the  action  by  accident,  I  did  not  mean  to  say  that  it 
produces  it  by  chance.  I  only  meant  to  say  that  a  being  is  inclined  to  the  action, 
in  so  far  as  indued  with  tendency,  and  not  as  indued  with  intelligence;  in  other 
words,  that  intelligence  in  it  simply  coincides  with  the  very  principle  of  the 
action,  and  is  not  itself  that  principle  (which  does  not  prevent  it  from  being  able 
to  direct  that  principle,  which  yet,  as  the  example  of  the  animals,  especially  of 
the  inferior  animals,  and  of  vegetable  nature  proves,  could  strictly  direct  itself 
without  it).  I  said,  in  a  word,  that  intelligence  produced  the  action  by  accident. 
I  acknowledge  mjself  culpable  of  affected  brevity  and  of  a  slightly  pedantic 
employment  of  the  language  of  Aristotle,  but  not  of  so  great  an  absurdity  as 
would  be  the  confusion  of  intelligence  with  chance.' 

I  admit  the  author's  corection;  but  we  still  need  to  know  how  the  tendency 
to  the  action  can  predetermine  the  action.  It  can  do  nothing  else  than  push 
the  action  in  an  indeterminate  manner,  and  it  can  only  be  t  ^  an  incomiirehen- 
■lible  concomitance  that  it  rencounters  the  willed  effect.     But  it  is  this  con- 


386 


BOOK  II.   CHAPTER  III. 


comitance  that  has  to  be  explained,  and  which  intelligence  explains.  The 
author  admits  that  intelligence  can  direct  the  action,  but  that  that  is  not 
necessary,  as  is  seen  by  the  example  of  the  vegetables  and  animals.  But  that 
precisely  is  the  problem.  We  see  a  case  where  the  cause  is  clearly  manifested : 
why  not  suppose  that  it  is  the  same  in  the  cases  where  it  is  more  obscure, 
whether  the  intelligence  reside  outside  the  being  or  reside  in  the  being  itself  in- 
a  confused  manner  ?  Apart  from  intelligence  or  mechanism,  there  only  remains 
a  hidden  faculty  that  has  no  proportion  to  its  effects. 


CHAPTER    IV. 

THE  PURE  IDEA  AND  CREATIVE  ACTIVITY. 

TTTE  have  come  to  circumscribe  the  problem  more  and 
'  '  more  narrowly ;  but  still,  the  farther  we  advance,  the 
-more  difficult  becomes  the  solution,  and  the  means  of  deciding 
become  more  difficult  to  manage.  We  have  found  that  there 
is  finality  in  nature ;  that  this  finality  must  have  a  cause  ;  that 
this  cause  cannot  be  the  mere  mechanism  which  is  destruc- 
tive of  all  finality,  nor  what  is  above  mechanism,  instinct  or 
vitality.  It  seems,  therefore,  that  if  the  primary  root  of  final- 
ity is  neither  matter  nor  life,  it  must  be  the  soul,  —  that  is, 
intelligence  or  thought ;  for  there  is  nothing  beyond,  at  least 
intelligible  to  us,  except,  perhaps,  liberty.  But  liberty  with- 
out intelligence  and  thought  is  only  brute  force,  the  'Avay/«/ 
•or  the  Fatum  of  the  ancients  ;  and  as  to  intelligent  liberty,  it 
is  precisely  what  we  call  by  a  single  word,  and  for  brevity, 
intelligence. 

But  is  intelligence  the  same  thing  as  thought?  Or,  if  it 
be  agreed  to  give  the  same  meaning  to  these  two  names,  is 
not  the  fact  thus  expressed  double  ?  Does  it  not  contain  two 
elements,  the  thing  thought,  and  the  thing  thinking  —  the  ro 
cogitans^  and  the  to  cogitatum  ?  If  Descartes  could  say : 
Cogito^  ergo  sum,  might  he  not  have  said  as  well :  Cogito,  ergo 
est  aliquid  cogitatum  ?  Is  not  the  thing  tJiought  an  essential 
part  of  thought?  When  you  say:  A=A,  is  not  there  here 
an  object  distinct  from  the  consciousness  you  have  of  it  ? 
And  even  if  there  were  not  an  A  in  the  world,  is  not  this  A 
that  is  in  your  thought  distinct  from  the  thinking  subject, 
and  opposed  to  it  ?  Being  a  thing  thought,  it  is  not  tliat  which 
thinks.     This  objective  element,  immanent  in  intelligence,  ia 

387 


388  BOOK  IT.  CHAPTER  IV. 

what  is  called  the  intelligible,  tlie  rational,  and  is  logically 
anterior  to  intelligence ;  for  there  must  be  something  intel- 
ligible, in  order  that  there  may  be  intelligence.  Tlie  truth 
consists  precisely  in  this  intelligible  in  itself,  and  not  in  the 
consciousness  we  have  of  it.  Let  us  call,  with  Plato  and 
Hegel,  this  intelligible  foundation  of  all  reality,  idea  ;  let  us 
call  the  internal  and  rational  essence  of  things,  thought ;  and 
"we  perceive  that  a  new  question  may  be  raised  —  namely, 
what  is  the  truly  constituent  element  of  thought  ?  Is  it  the 
rational  in  itself,  the  intelligible,  the  idea?  Is  it,  on  the 
other  hand,  consciousness  ?  In  the  first  case,  it  is  the  objec- 
tive of  thought  that  is  its  substratum,  and  the  subjective  is 
no  more  than  an  accident,  an  accessory.  In  the  second  case^ 
it  is,  on  the  contrary,  consciousness  that  is  the  essential  act 
of  intelligence ;  it  is  it  that  renders  possible  the  intelligible, 
that  gives  it  life  and  being,  that  evokes  it  from  nothing.  For 
what  is  an  intelligible  that  no  one  comprehends,  a  truth  that 
no  one  knows  ? 

From  these  two  interpretations  of  the  same  fact  may  origi- 
nate two  hypotheses  on  the  first  cause  of  finality.  While 
admitting  by  common  consent  that  finality  has  its  cause  in 
thought,  we  may  mean  by  this,  either  logical  finality,  that  of 
the  concept,  of  the  pure  idea  (anterior  to  consciousness),  or 
the  finality  of  intelligence  properly  so  called,  —  that  is  to  say, 
conscious  intelligence. 

It  is  the  first  of  these  two  doctrines  that  is  the  true 
foundation  of  the  Hegelian  philosophy,  and  which  raises  it 
far  above  materialist  and  purely  naturalist  doctrines,  although 
the  Left  of  this  school  has  too  quickly  inclined  to  the  side  of 
naturalism. 

Would  not  the  true,  the  absolute  type  of  finality,  which  is 
not  in  instinct,  be  found  in  the  finality  of  the  concept  or  the 
idea  ?  In  fact,  every  idea,  ev5ry  concej^t,  contains,  on  the  same 
ground  as  a  work  of  art  or  a  living  being,  an  internal  finality, 
a  co-ordination  of  the  parts  to  the  whole.  On  this  ground 
alone  is  it  a  concept,  an  idea.     Suppose,  in  fact,  that  the  ele- 


THE   PURE   IDEA  AND   CREATIVE   ACTIVITY.  389- 

ments  of  which  a  concept  is  composed  were  only  in  juxtaposi- 
tion and  not  united,  you  will  have  several  concepts,  and  not 
merely  one.  Suppose  they  are  in  discord,  you  have' a  contra- 
dictory concept,  —  that  is,  a  non-concept.  Every  concept  is 
thus  a  conciliation  between  a  certain  multiplicity  and  a  certain 
unity  ;  and  this  is  what  Plato  calls  an  idea  ev  Trepl  ra  ■n-oXXa').^ 
An  absolute  multiplicity  would  be  unintelligible  ;  an  absolute 
and  indistinct  unity  would  be  equally  so.  There  must  thus 
be  a  union  of  the  two  elements,  and  a  graduated  scale  from 
the  one  to  the  other.  '  The  wise  men  of  to-day,'  says  Plato, 
'  imperil  unitt/  and  plurality  sooner  or  later,  which  they  should 
not.  From  unity  they  pass  all  at  once  to  infinity,  and  the 
intermediate  numbers  escape  them.'  These  intermediate 
numbers  —  that  is  to  say,  the  genera  —  are  the  proper  objects 
of  knowledge,  and  make  of  nature  in  general  an  intelligible 
whole. 

Thus  the  whole  world  might  be  regarded  as  a  bundle  of 
concepts,  like  to  what  Leibnitz  called  the  union  of  germs.  On 
this  hypothesis,  each  concept  would  itself  be  a  bundle  con- 
taining others,  and  so  on  without  end  to  the  absolute  concept^ 
which  is  the  universal  sphere  of  concepts;  not  that  it  is  simply 
the  sum  and  collection  of  them,  but  it  contains  them  in 
substance  in  all  its  plenitude.  But  each  concept  amounts 
to  an  agreement  of  the  parts  with  the  whole,  and,  conse- 
quently, contains  an  immanent  finality.  This  is  what  results 
even  from  the  ideas  most  generally  received  on  the  origin  of 
created  finality.  In  fact,  it  is  generally  admitted,  after  Plato, 
that  God  created  animals  on  pre-existing  types  present  to  His 
mind.  But  these  types  must  already  have  presented  the 
same  relations  of  finality  as  their  copies ;  otherwise  it  must 
be  believed  that  the  divine  intelligence  only  contained  outlines 
at  first,  which  it  afterwards  perfected  in  becoming  creative. 
The  possible  and  the  real  are  distinguished,  and  it  is  admitted 
that  there  must  be  a  creator,  in  order  that  the  possible  may 
become  real ;  but  the  possible  itself  is  only  such  on  condition 

1  Rep.  lib.  X.  p.  596. 


S90  BOOK  II.  CHAPTER  IV. 

of  already  containing  intrinsic  relations  of  accommodation. 
No  doubt  concepts  may  be  combined,  and  this  is  secondary 
or  finite  finality;  but  this  combination  itself  supposes  pre- 
existing concepts,  in  which  the  agreement  of  the  parts  with 
the  whole  is  already  given,  and  is  not  the  work  of  a  voluntary 
accommodation.  If  it  be  so  in  the  idea,  why  should  it  not 
be  the  same  in  the  realization  of  the  idea?  Or,  rather,  is 
there  veritably  a  difference  between  the  idea  and  the  reality, 
between  the  model  and  the  copy  ?  If  the  idea  is  logically 
anterior  to  consciousness,  it  has  already  a  mode  of  existence 
in  itself  anterior  to  the  fact  of  being  known.  But  what  is 
this  mode  of  existence?  And  who  can  prove  to  us  that  it  is 
anything  else  than  just  what  we  call  existence?  Are  things 
distinct  from  their  ideas?  Whereby  and  wherein  are  they 
distinct?  We  transfer  our  subjective  ideas  to  the  divine 
intelligence ;  we  suppose  that  God  may  know  possible  things 
that  are  not  real,  which  is  only  true  of  the  finite  intelligence. 
But  in  the  absolute,  to  be  thought  and  to  be  are  only  one  and 
the  same  thing.  Being  is  the  intelligible,  and  the  intelligible 
is  being.  There  are  not  two  men,  man  in  himself  and  the 
real  man;  otherwise,  as  Aristotle  says,  a  third  would  be 
needed  to  set  them  in  harmony.  To  admit  ideas  distinct  from 
things  (or,  what  is  equivalent,  things  distinct  from  ideas)  is, 
as  Aristotle  says,  to  count  twice  the  same  beings,  adding  the 
words  in  themselves  (K-a(9'  aura).  Will  it  be  said  that  things 
cannot  be  confounded  with  their  ideas,  because  they  are  finite, 
contingent,  and  imperfect,  and  the  world  of  ideas  is  only  the 
world  of  the  perfect  and  absolute  ?  Why,  this  would  just  be 
to  deny  that  things  have  their  ideas,  their  eternal  and  pre- 
existing models.  If  things  have  their  ideas,  these  ideas 
represent  them  with  their  characters  of  contingency,  limita- 
tion, and  imperfection.  Thus  the  plant  in  itself  is  represented 
as  less  perfect  than  the  animal,  the  animal  as  less  perfect 
than  man.  These,  being  changing  things,  are  represented 
as  changing,  and  their  ideas  contain  the  dea  of  change. 
What  makes  us  believe  that  the  totality  of  things  consti- 


THE   rURE   IDEA  AND   CREATIVE   ACTIVITl  391 

tuting  the  world  is  finite,  is  that  we  ourselves  are  one  of 
these  things,  and  that  we  only  consider  the  whole  from  our 
limited  point  of  view.  But  these  limitations  are  only  logical 
and  relative,  and  the  entire  sphere  of  concepts  is  nevertheless 
ixn  absolute  sphere.  Besides,  has  not  Plato  admirably  shown 
that  the  not-being  itself  has  its  place  among  ideas  ?  Without 
the  not-being  there  were  no  distinction ;  all  the  genera  would 
be  confounded,  thought  would  vanish  with  being.^ 

For  the  rest,  we  know  that  the  question  how  far  the  idea 
is  distinct  from  nature,  is  one  of  those  that  have  divided  the 
Hegelian  school.  Hegel  maintains  this  distinction,  which 
vanishes  with  his  disciples.  What  with  him  is  ideal  becomes 
with  them  natural.  But  even  if  one  maintained,  with  Hegel, 
the  distinction  of  the  idea  and  nature,  of  the  abstract  and  the 
concrete  existence  of  the  idea,  one  might  still  say  that  nature 
is  only  the  idea  in  motion,  the  idea  externalized,  and,  conse- 
quently, that  it  must  manifest  externally  the  internal  finality 
that  constitutes  it.  Nature  being  only  the  idea,  each  of  the 
terms  of  nature  is  only  one  of  the  terms  of  the  idea.  It  is, 
therefore,  a  concept;  and  as  the  concept  has  an  internal 
finality,  the  being  that  represents  it  has  the  same  finality.  It 
is  only  the  concept  realizing  itself,  the  essence  seeking  and 
finding  itself  by  degrees;  but  as  the  final  end  of  each  being 
is  to  attain  all  its  essence,  its  whole  idea,  it  is,  therefore, 
definitively  the  end  that  realizes  itself.  What  is  the  end 
of  the  animal  ?  It  is  to  live.  But  is  it  to  live  like  the 
plant  ?  No ;  as  an  animal.  But  is  it  merely  to  live  like  an 
animal  in  general?  No  ;  but  as  a  given  animal  in  particular. 
The  end  of  each  being  is  thus  to  live  conformably  to  its  own 
nature ;  it  is  its  nature  that  is  its  end.  And  as,  at  the  same 
time,  this  proper  nature  or  essence  is  the  cause  of  its  develop- 
ment, the  end  is  thus  the  cause.     Here  is  the  yery  essence 

1  It  might  be  said  that  there  is  a  distinction  between  things  and  ideas  - 
namely,  that  tilings  move,  while  ideas  do  not  move.  But  if  the  doctrine  of 
Kant  be  admitted  on  the  subjectivity  of  the  idea  of  time,  this  distinction 
TTould  disappear.  Motion  would  be  a  purely  ideal  fact,  having  reference  only 
to  oui  mode  of  conception. 


392  BOOK  II.   CHAPTER  IV. 

of  the  final  cause,  the  absolute  identity  of  the  end  and  the 
cause.  It  is  because  it  is  an  animal,  and  such  an  animal, 
that  it  develops  in  such  a  direction,  and  it  is  in  order  to  be- 
come that  that  it  develops.  Thus  the  in  order  to  blends  with 
the  because.  But  both  are  confounded  in  the  concept  of  the 
being.  It  is  the  concept  of  the  bird  that  makes  it  have  wings, 
and  it  has  wings  in  order  to  realize  the  concept  of  the  bird. 

In  a  word,  whoever  admits  the  theory  of  Platonic  archetypes 
{ra  TrapaSeiy/xara) ,  must  acknowledge  that  in  this  ideal  world, 
that  serves  as  model  to  the  real,  each  type  contains  as  pure 
essence  and  a  priori,  and  without  having  previously  been 
fabricated,  the  same  relations  of  accommodation  as,  in  the 
real  world,  the  genera  really  existing.  But  since  this  accom- 
modation may  exist  in  itself  before  creation,  without  it  being 
necessary  to  suppose  an  anterior  cause,  except  the  Absolute, 
that  envelops  all,  and  of  which  ideas  are  only  the  modes, 
why  should  these  same  types  need  for  their  realization  another 
virtue  than  the  virtue  that  gives  them  being,  —  that  is  to 
say,  their  own  essence,  and  their  relation  to  the  Absolute? 
In  this  conception,  finalit}^  is  not  the  result  of  chance ;  there 
is  no  chance.  It  is  not  the  result  of  mechanism,  mechanism 
only  being  the  totality  of  inferior  notions,  the  poorest  of  all, 
and,  consequently,  the  least  intelligible.  It  is  not  the  result 
of  vitality  and  instinct ;  for  vitality  and  instinct  are  precisely 
the  facts  of  finality  that  must  be  explained.  Finality  has  its 
cause  in  thought, — that  is  to  say,  in  the  necessity  of  things 
being  rational  in  order  to  exist.  Finality  is  the  truth  which, 
in  the  common  opinion,  is  bound  to  the  consciousness  one  has- 
of  it,  while  it  is  independent  of  it.  Hegel  has  expressed  this 
in  one  of  his  finest  pages,  that  sums  up  all  his  doctrine. 

'  When  I  know  how  a  tiring  is,  I  possess  the  truth.  It  is 
thus  one  conceives  the  truth  at  first.  But  that  is  only  the 
truth  in  its  relation  to  consciousness,  or  formal  truth,  mere 
justness  of  thought.  The  truth,  in  a  profounder  sense,  con- 
sists, on  the  other  hand,  in  the  identity  of  the  object  with  the 
notion.     This  is  the  truth  we  mean,  for  instance,  when  we 


THE   PURE  IDEA  AND   CREATIVE   ACTIVITY.  393 

speak  of  a  veritable  state,  of  a  veritable  work  of  art.  These 
objects  are  true  when  they  are  what  they  ought  to  be,  —  that 
is,  when  their  reality  corresponds  to  their  notion.  Thus 
viewed,  the  false  (das  Unwahre')  is  the  bad.  A  bad  man  is  a 
false  man,  a  man  who  is  not  conformed  to  his  notion.  In 
general,  nothing  can  exist  in  which  this  agreement  of  notion 
and  reality  is  not  found.  The  bad  and  the  false  themselves  are 
only  in  so  far  as,  and  in  the  measure  in  which,  their  reality 
corresponds  to  its  notion.  The  absolutely  bad  and  the  abso- 
lutely contrary  to  the  notion  fall  and  vanish,  so  to  say,  of 
themselves.  The  notion  alone  is  that  by  which  things  exist, 
which  religion  expresses  by  saying  that  things  are  what  they 
are  by  the  Divine  Thought  that  created  and  animates  them. 
When  we  start  from  the  idea,  it  need  not  be  conceived  as  some- 
thing inaccessible,  and  as  placed  beyond  the  limits  of  a  region 
that  cannot  be  reached.  For  it  is,  on  the  contrary,  what  is 
most  present,  and  is  found  in  every  consciousness,  although 
it  be  not  there  in  its  purity  and  clearness.  We  conceive  the 
world  as  an  immense  whole  that  God  has  created,  and  that 
He  has  created  because  He  finds  His  satisfaction  in  it.  We 
also  conceive  it  as  ruled  by  Divine  Providence.  That  is  to 
say,  the  beings  and  multiplied  events  that  compose  the  world 
are  eternally  reduced  to  that  unity  from  which  they  pro- 
ceeded, and  preserved  in  a  state  conformable  to  that  unity. 
Philosophy  has  no  other  object  than  the  speculative  knowl- 
edge of  the  idea,  and  all  research  deserving  the  name  of 
philosophy  has  only  proposed  to  manifest  in  the  conscious- 
ness this  absolute  truth,  which  the  understanding  only  grasps 
in  some  sort  by  fragments.'  ^ 

The  grandeur  of  the  conception  we  have  just  set  forth  will 
not  be  disputed.  It  leaves  far  behind  it  all  the  materialist 
hypotheses,  and  even  those  of  hylozoism,  themselves  so 
superior  to  materialism.  It  is  not  very  certain  that  Plato 
himself,  in  his  theory  of  ideas,  had  any  other  conception  than 
that.  Although  its  pantheistic  character  cannot  be  mistaken, 
1  Hegel,  Grande  Encyclop€die,  §  213. 


394  BOOK  II.   CHAPTER  IV. 

it  is  yet  distinguishable  from  Spinoza's  hypothesis  in  two 
essential  points  :  1st,  It  reduces  to  the  idea  what  Spinoza  calls 
substance.  The  characteristic  and  determining  element  of  the 
being  is  the  rational,  the  intelligible,  the  logical ;  while  for 
Spinoza  it  is  the  substratum,  which  is  hardly  distinguishable 
from  the  Aristotelian  matter,  and  has  no  title  to  be  called 
God.  2d,  The  idea  is  considered  as  a  circle,  which  returns  to 
itself:  it  sets  out  from  and  returns  to  itself.  It  is,  therefore, 
final  cause  ;  while  Spinoza's  substance  is  lost  in  its  attributes, 
the  attributes  in  their  modes,  so  that  the  being  seems  always 
removed  farther  and  farther  from  itself.  The  substance  is 
thus  only  the  efficient  cause,  and  its  progress  is  only  down- 
wards, its  development  is  one-sided  ;  while,  in  the  philosophy 
of  Hegel,  the  advance  of  the  idea  is  progressive,  and  the 
motion  is  double,  at  once  centrifugal  and  centripetal.  The 
idea  is  the  fusion  of  the  two  forces.  The  conception  of  Hegel 
is  thus  more  spiritualistic  ;  that  of  Spinoza  more  materialistic. 
Let  us  now  see  on  what  conditions  the  Hegelian  conception 
will  maintain  its  superiority  over  that  of  Spinoza,  and  whether 
it  will  not  be  just  by  reducing  itself  to  the  spiritualist  con- 
ception properly  so  called. 

The  essential  conception  of  Hegelianism  is  to  substitute 
ideas  for  things,  to  eliminate  the  thing  (^das  Ding')  as  a  caput 
mortuum,  void  of  all  content.  A  thing  only  is,  and  deserves 
to  be,  as  it  is  intelligible  and  rational.  Each  thing  possesses 
as  much  being  as  it  has  rational  content.  A  heap  of  stones 
is  only  a  being  by  accident,  because  the  stones  composing  it 
have  only  extrinsic  and  fortuitous  relations,  and  have  nothing 
intelligible.  If  this  conception,  which  is  true,  is  admitted, 
it  must  follow  that  the  being  existing^  because  of  intellisji- 
bility,  the  absolute  must  be  the  absolutely  intelligible.  But 
what  is  an  intelligible,  but  what  is  capable  of  being  compre- 
hended ?  What  is  the  rational,  but  what  satisfies  the  reason  ? 
What  is  the  truth,  but  what  is  seen  and  recognised  as  true  ? 
What  is  a  truth  that  no  one  knows,  and  that  does  not  know 
itself  ?     A  truth  absolutely  unknown,  which,  on  the  one  hand, 


THE   PURE   IDEA  AND   CREATIVE   ACTIVfTY.  395 

does  not  rest  on  a  substance,  and,  on  the  other,  is  not  received 
in  a  mind,  is  nothing  but  a  mere  possibility.  Bossuet  has 
admirably  said,  in  a  famous  passage  which  contains  the 
marrow  of  what  is  excellent  in  Hegelianism :  '  If  I  now  ask 
where  and  in  what  subject  these  truths  subsist,  eternal  and 
immutable  as  they  are,  I  am  obliged  to  own  a  being  wherein 
truth  eternally  subsists  and  is  always  understood ;  and  this 
being  must  be  the  truth  itself,  and  must  be  all  truth ;  and 
from  it  the  truth  is  derived  in  all  that  is,  and  is  understood 
apart  from  it.' 

Thus  a  truth  not  understood  is  not  a  truth.  Hegel  says 
that  the  truth  in  its  relation  to  consciousness  is  only  a 
'formal  truth.'  We,  on  the  other  hand,  say  that  a  truth 
without  any  relation  to  consciousness  is  only  a  formal  truth, 
—  that  is,  a  potential  truth.  No  doubt,  if  we  speak  of  the 
human  consciousness,  subjective,  particular,  localized,  the  per- 
ception of  that  truth  will  only  constitute,if  you  will,  a  formal 
truth.  For  the  truth  in  itself,  to  be  perceived  by  man,  will 
only  be  an  external  denomination^  as  the  names  we  give  Him 
are  to  God,  which  can  add  nothing  to  His  perfection.  It  by 
no  means  follows  from  this  that  consciousness  does  not  form 
an  integral  part  of  truth.  Only  to  an  absolute  truth  there 
should  be  an  absolute  consciousness  to  correspond ;  the  sub- 
jective element  ought  to  be  adequate  to  the  objective.  Hegel 
himself  does  not  hesitate  to  define  the  idea,  '  the  identity  of 
the  subject  and  the  object ; '  and  he  accuses  the  philosophy 
of  Schelling  of  having  too  much  sacrificed  the  subject  to  the 
object.  But  what  can  remain  of  the  subject  if  knowledge, 
consciousness,  be  taken  from  it  ?  The  truth  can,  therefore, 
only  cease  to  be  formal,  by  being  the  adequate  act  of  the 
intelligible  and  of  intelligence,  as  Aristotle  has  defined  it :  it 
is  the  thought  of  the  thought.  For  the  rest,  this  is  what 
Hegel  himself  expresses  in  this  proposition,  which  is  the  con- 
clusion of  his  Logic :  '  The  idea,  as  unity  of  the  objective 
and  subjective  idea,  is  the  notion  of  the  idea  that  has  no 
other  object  than  the  idea,  or,  what  amounts  to  the  same 


396  BOOK  II.  CHAPTER  IV. 

thing,  which  takes  itself  for  its  object.  It  is  the  idea  that 
thinks  itself.'  ^  F^nelon  expresses  the  same  thought  more 
clearly  when  he  says :  '  It  is  thus  evident  that  He  [God] 
knows  Himself,  and  that  He  knows  Himself  perfectly,  —  that 
is  to  say,  that  in  seeing  Himself,  He  equals  by  His  intelligence 
His  intelligibility;  in  a  word.  He  comprehends  Himself.' ^ 

We  perceive  from  this  analysis  that  the  Hegelian  concep- 
tion, properly  understood,  does  not  essentially  differ  from 
that  which  we  propose.  In  fact,  between  an  idea  that  thinks 
itself  and  an  intelligence  that  thinks  the  truth,  and  makes 
but  one  with  it,  the  difference  would  be  difficult  to  grasp. 
We  may  indifferently,  and  according  to  the  point  of  view 
selected,  give  prominence  to  the  rational  and  objective  side 
of  the  idea,  and  we  shall  have  the  impersonal  God ;  or  give 
prominence  to  the  subjective  and  conscious  point  of  view,  and 
we  shall  have  the  personal  God.  But  these  two  points  of 
view  make  but  one ;  and  in  both  systems  intelligence,  the 
Nots,  will  be  at  the  origin  of  things.  It  is  in  this  sense  that 
the  identity  of  being  and  thought  may  be  admitted. 

The  absolute  idea  being  thus  at  the  same  time  absolute 
intelligence,  how  shall  one  conceive  the  ulterior  development 
of  other  ideas  ?  For  it  is  this  development  that  constitutes 
the  world  properly  so  called,  or  nature. 

The  question  is  this :  Given  the  world  as  the  external 
development  of  the  absolute  idea  (whatever  for  the  rest  may 
be  the  cause  of  this  externalization  —  to  Hegel  as  to  us  an 
insoluble  problem),  the  question  is  whether  this  development 
has  its  cause  in  the  idea  considered  only  in  the  objective  and 
rational  point  of  view, -or  in  the  idea  considered  in  its  totality, 
as  the  unity  of  subject  and  object.  In  the  first  case,  the 
world  will  only  be  the  impersonal  development  of  the  divine 
idea ;  there  is  nothing  like  intentionality,  foresight,  wisdom. 
The  idea  realizes  itself  by  its  intrinsic  virtue  ;  finality  is  only 
logical.  But  if  the  world  is  derived  from  the  idea  considered 
altogether  (that  is  to  say,  subject-object),  it  may  be  affirmed 

1  Logic,  §  ccxxvi.  -  Fenelon,  Exist,  de  Dieu,  2ine  part.  art.  v. 


THE   PURE   IDEA  AND   CREATIVE   ACTrV'ITY.  397 

quite  as  well  that  it  is  derived  from  the  subject  idea  as  from 
the  object  idea,  —  that  is  to  say,  from  intelligence  as  from 
being,  —  and  it  will  be  free  to  us  to  say,  as  in  the  common 
philosophy,  that  intelligence  has  made  the  world.  Therefore, 
finality  is  intentional,  for  intelligence,  having  made  the  world 
conformably  to  the  idea  which  is  itself,  knowing  the  end, 
knows  at  the  same  time  all  the  steps  that  conduct  to  the 
end ;  and  this  relation  of  subordinate  knowledge  to  the  final 
And  total  knowledge  is  what  we  call,  in  human  language, 
foresight  and  intention — in  a  word,  wisdom. 

Let  us  consider  the  matter  on  another  side,  so  as  to  effect 
the  complete  transformation  of  the  pure  idea  into  creative 
activity. 

It  is,  doubtless,  with  reason  that  Hegel  has  set  forth  the 
rational  character  of  being,  and  advanced  this  proposition, 
that  what  is  not  rational  is  not  real ;  but  the  rational  as  such, 
taken  in  the  precision  of  its  idea,  is  something  inert,  dead, 
immoveable,  from  which  no  action  can  proceed.  Aristotle 
had  made  this  objection  to  the  ideas  of  Plato,  but  without 
reason ;  for  Plato  attributed  a  force  to  ideas,  Sura/>it9.  He 
ascribed  to  them  intelligence,  life,  and  motion,  and  placed  in 
Jupiter  a  royal  soul  (^Sao-tAtK^^v  ^xv^O-  Without  force, 
soul,  or  activity,  the  idea  not  only  could  not  be  developed, 
it  could  not  even  be.  Existence  is  not  a  mere  rationality,  a 
simple  concept.  It  is,  as  Herbart  saj^s,  '  an  absolute  position.' 
Being  is  because  it  is.  It  supposes  itself.  But  this  act  of 
supposing  itself  is  of  another  nature  (taken  strictly)  than 
rationality.  Granting  that  the  idea  supposes  itself,  and,  in 
doing  so,  supposes  the  rest,  still,  in  so  far  as  it  supposes  itself, 
it  is  activity  and  not  pure  idea ;  and  as  we  have  seen  that 
the  idea  itself  is  at  once  intelligence  and  truth,  it  is  thus  an 
intelligent  activity.  But  an  intelligent  activity  is  nothing 
else  than  a  will.  The  pure  idea  is  thus  a  pure  will,  an 
absolute  will. 

What  essentially  constitutes  finality,  is  that  the  relation  of 
the  parts  to  the  whole  is  contingent :  it  is  ;ust  this  that  ia 


398  BOOK  II.   CHAPTER  IV. 

finality.  If,  in  fact,  it  be  admitted  that  matter,  obeying 
necessar}'-  laws,  ought  by  force  to  take  the  form  of  an  organ 
fit  for  a  certain  function,  the  idea  of  finality  must  be 
sacrificed,  and  only  blind  necessity  be  admitted.  But  when 
we  speak  of  an  end,  it  is  implied  thereby  that  there  is  some- 
thing that  limits  and  circumscribes  the  mode  of  action  of 
matter  to  determine  it  to  a  certain  effect  rather  than 
another.  This  relation  is,  therefore,  contingent,  or,  yet  once 
more,  there  is  no  finality,  which  is  no  more  in  question. 
Meanwhile  this  relation  of  contingency  remains  always  the 
same,  whether  as  regards  real  matter  or  an  ideal  matter  con- 
ceived a  priori.  Ideal  matter  is  no  more  subject  than  real 
matter  to  a  necessary  law,  determining  it  to  become  bird, 
mammifer,  or  man.  It  contains,  no  doubt,  these  forms 
potentially,  for,  in  fact,  it  realizes  them ;  but  this  bare  power 
does  not  suffice  to  produce  these  combinations,  and  to  no 
purpose  are  they  logically  possible,  —  that  is,  do  not  imply 
a  contradiction ;  they  are  impossible  really  because  one  of 
the  elements  of  their  possibility  is  precisely  something  that 
is  not  mere  matter.  Thus  ideal  matter,  distinct  or  not  from 
real  matter,  so  far  as  it  realizes  relations  of  finality,  has  not 
its  reason  in  itself.  Ideally,  as  well  as  really,  it  only  ex- 
presses a  mere  possibility,  a  subject  of  motions  and  indeter- 
minate figures,  but  not  of  precise  combinations  or  appropriated 
forms.  In  a  word,  no  more  can  be  said  of  the  concept  than 
of  things  ;  and  if,  in  things  themselves,  the  predetermination 
of  the  present  by  the  future  cannot  have  its  cause  or  reason 
in  the  material  substratum,  in  the  vXrf  of  Aristotle,  it  is  quite 
the  same  with  the  concept.  The  concept  of  matter  does  not 
contain  more  adaptation  to  an  end  than  matter  itself;  in 
both  cases  the  true  cause  must  be  beyond.  If,  then,  there  is 
a  pure  concept  of  the  animal  in  itself,  that  concept  cannot 
exist  by  itself.  So  far  as  it  contains  an  ideal  adaptation  of 
matter  to  ends,  it  has  in  it  something  contingent,  which  can 
only  be  explained  by  a  will  directed  towards  an  end. 

It  will   be   said   that  if  the  concept  of  matter  does  not 


« 


THE  PURE   IDEA  AND   CREATIVE  ACTIVITY.  899 

oppose  the  formation  of  certain  determinate  bodies,  —  the 
elements,  for  instance,  —  it  is  not  evident  why  it  should  be 
opposed  to  more  complicated  bodies.  We  will  ask,  in  our 
turn,  if  even  these  first  bodies  are  necessarily  contained  in 
the  concept  of  matter,  and  if  the  idea  of  a  substance  which  is 
only  by  hypothesis  endued  with  motion  can,  strictly  speak- 
ing, lead  to  the  concept  of  anything  determinate. 

If,  then,  real  matter  does  not  guarantee  us  any  order,  the 
idea  of  matter  does  so  no  more  ;  and  inversely,  if  the  idea  oi 
matter  could  give  birth  of  itself  to  all  other  ideas,  —  that  is  to 
say,  to  all  that  presents  an  order,  plan,  form,  or  finality,  —  it  is 
not  evident  why  it  should  not  be  the  same  with  real  matter, 
and  not  merely  with  ideal  matter.  The  pure  idea  is  of  na 
further  use.  But  if,  in  fine,  it  is  said  that  it  is  not  the  con- 
cept of  matter  that  engenders  determinate  forms,  but  that  it 
is  the  idea  of  nature  altogether,  the  idea  of  the  whole,  which 
envelops  and  conditions  all  its  parts,  —  the  concept  of  matter 
being  itself  only  the  poorest  and  lowest  of  all,  —  I  shall 
willingly  admit  this  thought :  but  I  still  inquire.  In  virtue  of 
what  does  the  absolute  idea  accommodate  the  poorest  and 
lowest  concepts  to  the  interests  of  the  most  elevated,  when  no 
relation  of  necessity  exists  between  the  one  and  the  others  ? 
and  what  other  way  can  there  be  of  conceiving  this  accommo- 
dation, essentially  contingent  as  we  have  seen  it,  if  not  b}'- 
something  which  can  only  be  called  by  the  name  of  choice  ? 

Will  it  still  be  said  that  necessity,  no  doubt,  is  not  applicable 
to  the  concept  of  finality,  as  regards  starting  from  the  lowest 
notions  to  reach  the  highest,  but,  on  the  other  hand,  that  it 
is  the  highest  notions  that  necessarily  engender  their  material 
conditions?  that  thus  there  may  be  at  once  finality  and 
necessity,  and,  consequently,  that  it  is  useless  to  appeal  to 
choice,  foresight,  intentionality  ?  For  example,  as  the  notion 
of  the  circle  implies  the  notion  of  radii  and  renders  it  neces- 
sary, as  the  concept  of  ten  implies  the  concept  of  units,  the 
latter  the  concept  of  fractions,  and  so  on,  so  the  concept  of 
the  arimal  would  imply  that  of  organs,  the  concept  of  the 


400  BOOK  II.   CHAPTER  IV. 

vertebrate  that  of  a  circulatory  system.  Thus  a  necessary 
and  absolute  synthesis  would  be  established  in  an  inverse 
direction  to  the  impotent  analysis  of  materialism,  without  the 
very  slightest  need  to  appeal  to  a  previous  consciousness  of 
the  synthesis,  and  above  all  a  choice  and  will,  as  having 
co-ordinated  all  the  rest.  There  is  co-ordination,  there  is 
order  :  order  is  even  the  essence  of  things ;  but  this  order 
has  nothing  contingent,  and  is  sufficiently  explained  as  logical 
necessity  and  impersonal  truth. 

We  reply  that,  whether  the  series  be  begun  above  or  below, 
either  the  idea  of  finality  must  be  renounced,  or  the  idea  of 
logical  necessity.  It  is  as  impossible  to  comprehend  that  an 
end  necessarily  produces  its  conditions,  as  to  comprehend  that 
the  conditions  by  inevitable  destiny  conduct  to  the  end.  To 
say  that  the  function  creates  the  organ,  is  not  more  intelligible 
than  to  say,  the  organ  creates  the  function.  That  the  idea 
of  sight,  for  instance,  is  capable  of  commanding  matter,  of 
organizing  it  under  the  form  of  an  eye ;  that  the  idea  of  life 
is  capable  of  engendering  organs  of  nutrition,  is  always 
absolutely  unintelligible  :  it  is  to  revert  to  the  doctrine  of 
occult  qualities  and  of  instinctive  finality.  In  the  concept, 
just  as  in  reality,  the  end  cannot  be  active  of  itself;  the  end 
cannot  be  the  same  thing  as  what  realizes  the  end.  If  it  be 
said  that  glory  made  Alexander  the  conqueror  of  Asia,  it  is 
meant  that  the  love  and  thought  of  glory  —  that  is,  the  pre- 
vious imagination  of  the  result  of  his  actions  —  determined 
Alexander.  But  it  is  with  the  logical  concept  as  with  the 
reality.  In  the  concept  of  the  eye,  as  well  as  in  the  real 
e3'e,  sight  has  no  necessary  logical  relation  to  matter,  and, 
consequently,  cannot  predetermine  it  to  become  an  eye. 

Thus  it  is  evident  that  the  logical  concept  can  no  more 
explain  finality  than  mechanism  or  instinct  has  done ;  or,  at 
least,  it  only  explains  it  if  we  change  the  logical  into  an 
intellectual  concept,  —  that  is  to  say,  if  we  add  to  it  the  intel- 
ligence that  changes  the  conditions  into  means,  and  for  wliich 
the  results  are  ends. 


THE   PURE   IDEA   AND   CREATIVE   ACTIVITY.  401 

But  we  acknowledge  that  this  whole  deduction  supposes 
that  the  Platonic  exemplarism  be  renounced,  which  supposes 
beforehand  all  the  concepts  of  things,  including  their  finality, 
to  be  given  in  the  divine  intelligence  a  priori,  which  thereby 
removes  them  from  the  choice  and  action  of  God,  and  which 
destroys  from  the  foundation  the  argument  of  final  causes. 
According  to  this  hypothesis  there  would  be,  in  fact,  in  the 
divine  intelligence,  types  eternal  and  absolute,  like  God  Him- 
self, in  imitation  of  which  He  would  have  created  the  con- 
tingent and  limited  beings  composing  the  universe.  Every 
class  of  beings  would  have  its  model,  its  idea.  The  divine 
intelligence  would  contain  from  all  eternity  an  ideal  exemplar 
of  the  world;  and  not  only  of  this  actual  world,  but,  accord- 
ing to  Leibnitz,  of  all  possible  worlds,  among  which  God 
would  have  chosen  this  as  the  best  of  all.  Not  only  genera 
and  species,  but  individuals  themselves,  would  be  eternally 
represented  in  God.  Thus  the  world  would  exist  under  two 
forms :  1st,  Under  an  ideal  form  in  the  divine  nature ;  2d, 
Under  a  concrete  and  real  form  outside  of  God. 

Such  a  hyj)othesis  evidently  destroys  all  foresight  and 
creative  wisdom  in  the  Supreme  Being.  For  all  things  being 
represented  beforehand,  from  all  eternity,  as  they  behoved  to 
be,  their  finality  thus  equally  exists  in  a  necessary  and  eternal 
manner,  without  God  intervening  otherwise  than  to  contem- 
plate it.  Let  the  divine  idea,  for  instance,  conceive  the  human 
body.  In  this  idea  are  found  represented  all  the  relations 
that  constitute  the  body,  and,  in  particular,  the  relations  of 
adaptation  and  of  finality,  without  which  there  is  no  human 
body.  Such  an  idea,  being  eternal,  absolute,  like  God  Him- 
self, is  not  created  by  Him ;  it  is  not  the  product  of  His  will 
nor  of  His  power,  for  it  is  Himself.  Must  it  not,  therefore, 
be  concluded  that  there  may  be  relations  of  finality  self-exist- 
ing, before  any  foresight,  and  independent  of  any  creation  and 
of  any  personal  combination  ?  If  foresight  or  choice  is  not  in 
conception,  no  more  is  it  in  creation  itself.  In  fact,  when  God 
wished  to  create  the  body,  what  had  He  to  foresee  and  to 


402  BOOK  II.  CHAPTEK  IV. 

combine,  since  all  is  foreseen  and  combined  beforehand  in  His 
eternal  thought,  in  the  eternal  model  that  rests  in  Him  ?  He 
had  nothing  to  do  but  to  copy  that  eternal  model,  without 
having  need  of  any  particular  act  of  thought  to  adapt  means 
to  ends.  This  adaptation  is  given  in  itself  by  the  very  nature 
of  things,  in  the  divine  idea  of  a  human  body ;  and  unless  it 
be  said  there  is  no  such  idea,  it  is  not  evident  in  what  creative 
labour  consists ;  I  can  only  see  in  it  imitation  pure  and  simple. 

No  doubt  if  we  suppose,  like  Plato,  matter  existing  apart 
from  God,  already  having  determinate  properties,  I  would 
admit  that  there  was  room  for  combination,  comparison,  and 
foresight,  to  adapt  the  laws  and  properties  of  this  matter  to 
an  ideal  plan ;  but  as  such  matter  does  not  exist,  and,  conse- 
quently, opposes  no  obstacle  to  God,  He  has  no  difficulty  to 
foresee  nor  to  remove,  no  means  to  prepare  ;  the  world  is 
given  Him  a  priori,  entire  in  all  its  parts,  in  its  totality,  in 
all  its  order.  He  has  only  a  word  to  say,  a  fiat  to  pronounce. 
In  this  I  see  great  power,  but  no  act  of  foresight. 

Thus,  on  the  hypothesis  of  exemplarism,  or  of  Platonic 
paradigms^  foresight  would  have  no  place  in  God.  It  would 
not  be  in  the  conception  of  the  types,  since  they  are  eternally 
present  to  Him  (avTa  Kaff  avra'),  holding  of  Him  their  essence, 
no  doubt,  but  necessarily ;  it  would  not  be  in  the  execution 
of  the  work,  since  God  would  have  nothing  else  to  do  than  to 
execute  what  He  had  conceived.  It  is  said  in  the  schools  that 
God  is  the  author  '  of  existences  and  not  of  essences.'  But  if 
it  be  so,  as  Gassendi  said  with  reason  to  Descartes,  '  What 
great  thing,  then,  does  God  do  when  He  produces  existence  ? 
Certainly  He  does  nothing  more  than  a  tailor,  ivhen  he  clothes  a 
man  with  his  apparel.''  ^ 

Reid  makes  similar  objections  to  the  theory  of  ideas,  or 
eternal  essences.  '  This  system  only  leaves  the  Creator,  in 
the  production  of  the  universe,  the  sole  merit  of  executioyi. 
The  model  had  all  the  beauty  and  perfection  that  is  admired 
in  the  copy,  and  the  Deity  had  only  to  copy  after  a  pattern 

1  Objeo'  ions  to  the  Fifth  Meditation. 


THE   PURE   IDEA  AND   CREATIVE   ACTIVITY.  403 

ti.at  existed  independent  of  him.  .  .  .  2d,  If  the  world  of 
ideas,  without  being  the  work  of  a  perfectly  wise  and  good 
intelligent  being,  could  have  so  much  beauty  and  perfection, 
how  can  we  infer  from  the  order  and  beauty  of  this  world, 
which  is  but  an  imperfect  copy  of  the  other,  that  it  must 
have  been  made  by  a  perfectly  wise  and  good  being  ?  Either 
this  argument  is  destroyed  by  the  supposition  of  an  ideal 
world  that  exists  without  cause,  or  else  it  applies  to  that  ideal 
world  itself.'  i 

On  the  hypothesis  of  exemplarism,  God  would  show  in  cre- 
ating less  invention  and  genius  than  the  most  commonplace 
of  artists.  The  latter,  in  fact,  as  esthetic  teaches  us,  has  not 
only  the  merit  of  copying  his  model,  but  he  creates  one  for 
himself,  which  he  externally  realizes.  As  to  God,  He  would 
do  nothing  but  slavishly  copy  the  eternal  model  that  He  car- 
ries in  Himself !  Where  would  be  omnipotence  in  an  act  so 
inferior?  He  creates,  it  is  said,  the  material  of  things,  and 
it  is  herein  that  His  is  superior  to  human  art ;  but  what  is 
this  matter  compared  with  the  form  ?  Would  he  who  should 
create  marble  be  superior  to  him  who  creates  the  statue  ? 
Thus  the  dignity  of  the  Creator  appears  to  us  much  reduced, 
when  no  other  honour  is  left  to  Him  but  to  produce  the  sub- 
stance of  the  world,  while  the  world  itself,  in  its  harmonious 
and  wise  form,  would  be  eternally  represented  a  pi'iori  in  His 
mind,  without  Him  having  in  any  way  ordained  it  Himself 
and  by  a  free  volition. 

Observe  that  on  this  hypothesis  it  is  not  merely  the  general 
essences  that  are  thus  represented  in  the  divine  understand- 
ing, but  also  individual  essences.  Not  only  man  in  himself, 
but  Socrates  in  himself,  Plato,  Adam,  and  so  on,  are  eternally 
represented  there  with  their  specific  and  individual  charac- 
ters ;  and  the  whole  series  of  actions  that  each  of  them  must 
accomplish,  all  the  consequences,  the  whole  chain  of  events, 
all  is  a  priori  in  the  divine  mind.  When  God  creates,  He 
therefore  does  nothing  but  externally  produce   that   ideal 

1  Essays  on  the  Intellectual  Powers,  vol.  i.  Essay  iv.  chap.  ii.  p.  31 1. 


404  BOOK  II.   CHAPTER  IV. 

world  —  that  photograph,  by  anticipatiou,  of  the  real  world. 
But  is  not  this,  as  the  opponents  of  optimism  have  so  often 
objected,  to  subject  God  to  fate, — to  associate  with  Him, 
even  as  ideal,  a  world,  or  even  worlds  without  end,  with 
which  He  dwells,  without  having  willed  it  ? 

If,  then,  we  wish  to  maintain  the  theory  of  final  causes,  it 
is  indispensable  to  push  it  farther,  and  to  transfer  it  into  the 
heart  of  the  divine  nature  —  to  the  very  production  of  the 
divine  types.  Creation  must  be  made  to  commence  before 
the  realized  appearance  of  the  world,  its  first  lineaments  must 
be  discovered  in  the  divine  life  itself. 

We  will  admit,  then,  a  sort  of  primary  creation  anterior  to 
the  creation  of  the  world,  and  which  we  would  willingly  call 
the  ideal  creation.  God,  before  creating  the  world,  creates  the 
idea  of  the  world ;  He  creates  what  Plato  calls  the  avro^oiov 
or  the  TrapaSuyfjia  —  namely,  the  ideal  type  that  contains  in 
it  all  the  genera,  species,  and  individuals  of  which  the  sensi- 
ble or  real  world  is  composed. 

But  to  say  that  God  creates  essences  at  the  same  time  as 
existences,  is  this  not  saying  with  Descartes,  that  God  is  the 
author  of  the  eternal  verities,  that  He  creates  the  true  and 
the  false,  good  and  evil  ?  —  a  theory  a  hundred  times  refuted, 
and  which  in  itself  is  indefensible ;  for,  on  the  one  hand,  it 
makes  of  God  a  very  tyrant,  and,  on  the  other,  it  puts  in 
peril  all  certitude  and  all  truth. 

We  must  here  establish  a  distinction  between  verities  and 
essences.  No  doubt  the  truth  —  that  is  to  say,  the  logical 
connection  of  ideas  —  cannot  be  the  object  of  a  free  act  of 
God»  nor  of  any  power  in  the  world.  No  doubt,  given  a  tri- 
angle, its  three  angles  must  necessarily  be  equal  to  two  right 
angles.  But  is  it  necessary  that  a  triangle  be  given  ?  That 
is  the  question.  A  triangle  is  the  synthesis  of  three  lines 
arranged  in  a  certain  manner.  But  is  this  synthesis  necessary, 
eternal,  absolute,  like  God  Himself?  Must  not  there  be  a 
certain  voluntary  act  to  bring  these  three  lines  together,  so  as 
to  intersect  ?     As  for  man,  it  may  be  said  that  the  idea  of  the 


THE  PURE   IDEA  AND  CREATIVE  ACTIVITY.  405 

triangle,  and  of  geometrical  figures  in  general,  is  inevitably 
imposed  upon  him,  whether  because  he  meets  them  in  nature 
or  because  he  sees  them  in  the  divine  mind.  But  in  God 
why  should  there  be  supposed  of  necessity  a  representation 
a  priori  of  what  does  not  yet  exist  ?  What  contradiction  is 
there  in  admitting  that  God,  by  a  free  act,  produces  the  idea 
of  the  triangle,  which  being  once  given,  carries  with  it  all 
that  is  contained  in  its  essence  ?  God,  on  this  hypothesis, 
does  not  create  the  truth,  but  He  creates  what,  being  once 
given,  will  be,  for  the  mind  that  contemplates  it,  the  occasion 
of  discovering  a  crowd  of  truths.  But  these  truths  would 
not  have  existed  if  the  idea  that  contains  and  envelops  them 
had  not  been  conceived. 

It  is  the  same  with  organic  forms  as  with  geometric.  As> 
soon  as  we  suppose  them  given,  there  immediately  follows  a 
certain  number  of  necessary  truths,  which  would  not  exist  if 
these  forms  were  not  given.  For  instance,  given  an  animal, 
it  is  necessary  for  it  to  have  means  of  nutrition  and  reproduc- 
tion ;  and  a  certain  mode  of  nutrition  being  given,  certain 
organs  are  necessary.  Cuvier  has  clearly  proved  that 
there  was  an  anatomy  a  priori  that  could  be  constructed 
from  this  or  that  datum.  But  what  does  not  seem  necessary 
is  that  the  idea  of  the  animal  should  be  given.  Why  should 
there  be  supposed  an  eternal  animal,  the  absolute  type  of  all 
existing  animals  ?  Would  not  that  be  an  animal-God,  if  we 
may  so  speak  ?  In  order  that  this  idea  of  the  animal  may 
exist,  there  must  be  an  activity  that  makes  the  synthesis  of 
all  the  elements  of  which  the  idea  of  the  animal  consists,  and 
that  distributes  them  conformably  to  a  plan.  No  doubt  it  is 
not  by  chance  and  caprice  that  God  creates  such  a  combina- 
tion, and  even  it  has  its  laws.  But  I  mean  to  say  that  if 
the  creative  activity  did  not  exist,  no  more  would  such  types 
exist.  What  I  criticise  is  the  conception  of  a  God  condemned 
to  contemplate  images  of  which  the  real  examples  nowhere 
exist.  To  my  thinking,  these  models  or  essences  must  have 
their  origin  and  causality  in  the  divine  power  and  will  aa 
well  as  existences. 


406  BOC^K  II.   CHAPTER  IV. 

To  make  this  point  of  view  more  clearly  understood,  let  us 
notice  that  in  intelligence,  as  experience  gives  it  to  us,  two 
things  maybe  distinguished,  —  contemplation  and  creation. 
There  is  cojitemplative  intelligence  and  creative  intelligence. 
When  we  learn  a  science,  as  geometry,  algebra,  etc.,  our  intel- 
ligence does  nothing  but  recognise  and  contemplate  the  pre- 
sented trutli,  and  it  is  still  the  same  when  we  think  of  the 
truths  we  have  once  discovered.  They  are  now  for  us 
only  an  object  of  contemplation.  No  doubt  that  is  not  a 
purely  passive  state  of  the  mind,  and  Aristotle  was  right  to 
consider  contemplation  as  an  activity.  But  is  it  the  highest 
of  activities  ?  Is  there  not  above  it  the  creative  activity,  — 
that  of  the  poet,  the  artist,  the  savant  even  ?  Here  intelli- 
gence is  not  content  to  contemplate  what  exists ;  it  produces 
itself  what  did  not  exist  before.  Moliere  creates  the  type  of 
the  Misanthrope^  Shakespeare  that  of  Hamlet.  Where  Lad 
they  seen  those  types  ?  Nowhere,  or  at  least  nowhere  entirely. 
It  is  the  poet  himself  that  has  given  birth  to  these  forms  and 
types;  he  has  combined  their  elements  into  a  harmonious 
and  living  whole ;  so  do  the  sculptor,  painter,  and  architect. 
Where  was  St.  Peter's  at  Rome  before  Michael-Angelo  ?  He 
caused  it  to  spring  from  his  thought ;  and  although  the  myth 
of  Jupiter  taking  Minerva  from  his  brain  has  been  a  thousand 
times  mentioned,  it  becomes  for  us  here  more  than  a  common 
metaphor  —  even  the  vivid  and  exact  expression  of  the  theory 
we  maintain.  In  the  genius  of  the  savant  it  seems  that  the 
two  modes  of  intelligence  unite  ;  for,  on  the  one  hand,  there  is 
for  him  the  contemplation  of  a  truth  he  has  not  made,  and, 
on  the  other,  by  his  discovery,  there  is  a  creation  of  means 
by  which  he  forces  the  truth  to  reveal  itself;  and  the  more 
creation  there  is,  there  is  the  more  genius. 

In  pure  contemplation,  the  intelligence  derives  nothing  from 
its  own  self;  it  is  only  a  mirror  reflecting  an  object  superior 
to  it.  And  even  if  it  be  admitted,  with  Leibnitz,  that  pure 
knowledge  is  innate,  or,  with  Plato,  that  the  soul  does  nothing 
but  remember,  it  is  still  the  case  that  in  knowledge  acquired 


THE   PURE  IDEA  AND   CREATIVE  ACTIVITY.  407 

if  there  be  spontaneous  evolution,  that  evolution  has  nothing 
personal,  nothing  that  the  soul  could  consider  as  its  individual 
work.  It  is  not  so  in  discovery,  or  in  poetic  and  artistic 
production.  In  both  these  cases  the  soul  not  only  has 
thoughts,  it  makes  them.  There  is  an  internal  elaboration 
and  a  fertilizing  activity  that  can  only  be  explained  by 
the  word  creation. 

So,  too,  the  epithet  '  creative  genius '  is  well  applied  to 
those  who  have  introduced  new  types,  methods,  or  truths 
into  the  world. 

The  difference  will  now  be  understood  that  we  make  out 
between  contemplation  and  creation ;  and  who  can  deny  that 
the  second  of  these  terms  is  superior  to  the  other?  This 
superiority  is  suflSciently  attested  by  the  different  amount  of 
pleasure  procured  by  the  two  acts. 

To  enjoy  a  truth  is  evidently  not  so  sweet  as  to  enjoy  the 
conquest  of  truth ;  to  contemplate  beautiful  works  of  art 
cannot  equal  the  pleasure  of  creating  them ;  the  pleasure  of 
a  virtue  practised  is  nothing  compared  to  the  pleasure  caused 
by  a  triumph  over  actual  temptation ;  and,  in  general,  pro- 
ductive activity  is  superior  to  mere  contemplation. 

When  Aristotle  considered  contemplation  as  the  highest  of 
activities,  he  compared  it  to  material  activity  that  produces 
outside ;  but,  in  what  he  called  contemplation,  he  did  not 
pay  attention  to  the  difference  we  have  mentioned.  He  did 
not  observe  that  in  pure  intelligence  there  may  still  be  two 
modes  of  activity  —  the  one  creative,  the  other  purely  con- 
templative, and,  therefore,  more  passive.  He  only  thought 
of  the  infinite  pleasure  that  the  discovery  of  truth  procured 
him ;  and  he  did  not  perceive  that  even  this  discovery  was 
not  purely  contemplative,  but  that  there  was  on  his  part  a 
display  of  inventive  activity,  and  that  it  was  in  that  very 
thing  that  his  happiness  consisted. 

Those  who  have  said  that  the  search  for  truth  is  worth 
more  than  the  possession  of  truth  itself,  have  had  a  presenti- 
ment of  the  thought  we  express.     But  they  deceived  them- 


403  BOOK  II.   CHAPTER  IV. 

selves  nevertheless :  it  is  not  the  search,  but  the  discovery 
that  is  the  supreme  pleasure.  For  to  seek  without  finding 
has  never  been  a  pleasure.  No  more  is  it  when  the  artist  is 
painfully  seeking  his  theme  that  he  is  happy ;  it  is  when  he 
has  brought  it  forth.  What  is  true  is,  that  for  the  scientist 
discovery,  and  for  the  artist  production,  are  the  supreme  happi- 
ness ;  but,  the  truth  once  found  and  the  masterpiece  achieved, 
they  both  pass  on  to  other  discoveries,  to  other  thoughts. 

It  will  now  be  understood  what  we  call  in  God  ideal 
creation.  It  is  in  Him  an  analogous  act  (save  the  difference 
of  infinitude)  to  what  we  call  the  creative  act  in  humarx 
genius.^ 

We  therefore  conceive  two  periods  in  the  divine  life, 
whether  historically  or  logically  distinct  does  not  here  much 
concern  us.  In  the  first  period,  God  is  in  Himself  collected, 
concentrated,  gathered  in  Himself  in  His  indivisible  unity. 
This  unity  is  not  an  empty  and  bare  unity,  whence  all  pro- 
ceeds without  one  knowing  why  (for,  being  nothing  in  itself, 
it  would  have  no  reason  to  determine  itself  in  one  direction 
rather  than  another)  ;  it  is  an  active  and  living  unity ;  it 
is  the  absolute  determination,  the  absolute  concentration  of 
being ;  it  is  the  plenum. 

God  being  thus  conceived  as  the  absolute  unity,  act,  and 
consciousness,  creation  commences  when  God  comes  out  of 
Himself,  and  thinks  something  else  than  Himself.  But  tlii&". 
very  thing  is  creation.  There  would  thus  be  in  some  sort 
two  creations,  —  the  one  concrete,  historical,  in  time  and  space, 
composed  of  individualities  that  have  their  proper  being,  and 
are  distinct  from  their  Creator,  at  least  in  that  superior  state 
in  which  they  become  self-conscious ;  and  another  creation, 
which  I  call  ideal,  and  which  consists  in  the  very  invention 
of  this  world,  which  may  be  considered  as  conceived  before 
being  externally  produced.    If  we  call  this  world  the  wot^d  of 

1  For  the  rest,  Plato  himself  is  not  far  from  this  thought  (See  Rep.  lib.  x., 
the  idea  of  the  bed):  '  There  are  thus  three  species  of  beds  —  one  which  exists 
in  itself  (iv  t^  i>v<rei),  and  of  which  it  may  he  said  that  God  has  made  it,  %» 

ffiaiiJiO  av  0eov  CfiyairiaBai. 


THE   PURE   IDEA  AND   CREATIVE   ACTIVITY.  409 

God,  the  divine  logos^  we  shall  thus  distinguish,  with  the 
Alexandrians  and  Philo,  two  kinds  of  word  or  logos  —  the 
internal  and  the  manifested  word:  Aoyos  ivBiuOeTw;,  A>yos 
■7rpo(j>opiKo<i.  There  will  thus  always  be  an  ideal  and  a  real 
world,  a  paradigm  and  a  copy.  But,  properly  speaking,  these 
are  purely  logical  distinctions,  borrowed  from  the  mode  of 
action  of  the  human  intelligence,  for  which  thinking  and 
doing  are  two  things.  This  duality  is  useless  when  applied 
to  the  creative  activity.  To  invent  and  create  are  one  and 
the  same  thing.  The  two  creations  thus  blend  into  one. 
But  then  we  know  the  meaning  of  the  expressions,  wisdom, 
art,  science,  applied  to  the  works  of  creation.  God  is  no 
longer  a  copyist,  faithfully  reproducing  a  fixed  model ;  He  is 
not  a  magician,  who,  by  an  act  of  will,  evokes  spirits  pre-ex- 
isting in  a  supra-mundane  world.  He  is  a  true  creator,  who 
knows,  who  can,  and  who  wills,  all  together ;  who  wills  at 
once  the  end  and  the  means,  —  the  end  by  an  antecedent, 
the  means  b}^  a  consequent  volition,  —  that  is  to  say,  in  real- 
ity, by  a  unique  and  absolute  volition,  which  we  logically 
analyze  to  bring  it  down  to  our  understanding. 

Thus,  as  we  f^^id  above,^  the  type  of  creative  activity  is  not 
mechanical  industry,  although  it  is  from  this  datum  that  we 
set  out  to  rise  to  the  idea  of  divine  art,  and  although  there 
is  even  here  a  mode  of  action  much  superior  to  mechanical 
instinct.  No  more  is  it  a  calculating  intelligence  obliged 
laboriously  to  combine  means  to  reach  its  end.  It  is  creative 
genius,  in  which  is  contained  the  faculty  of  combining  and 
foreseeing,  while  at  the  same  time  it  is  absorbed  b}-  a  higher 
power ;  it  is  the  point  where  intelligence  is  united  to  feeling 
and  will  in  an  indissoluble  union.  Such  is  the  commentary^ 
the  most  finished  monogram  that  nature  could  offer  us  of 
divine  wisdom  ;  but  let  us  not  forget  it  is  only  a  commentar}-. 
Our  knowledge  of  the  first  cause,  as  all  the  great  theologians 
have  thought,  is  only  analogical,  and  not  ontological.     God 

-  See  Book  ii.  chap.  iii. 


410  BOOK  II.  CHAPTER  IV. 

alone  knows  Himself  as  He  is ;  we  can  only  know  Hira  in 
relation  to  us. 

It  would,  moreover,  be  to  deceive  ourselves,  and  wrongly 
to  think  that  what  is  necessarily  relative  in  our  knowledge  of 
God  had  been  set  aside,  to  seek  to  imagine  something  more 
than  intelligence,  by  saying,  for  instance,  that  God  is  liberty, 
that  He  is  love,  etc.  That  would,  in  fact,  be  saying  nothing 
more  than  what  we  say.  No  doubt,  God  is  absolute  liberty ; 
but  a  liberty  without  intelligence  is  no  liberty :  it  is  caprice, 
or  rather  fate  and  chance.  No  doubt,  God  is  love  ;  but  a  love 
without  light  is  no  love,  and  may  do  more  harm  than  good. 
Thus  He  is  enlightened  liberty  and  love ;  in  a  word.  He  is 
wisdom,  as  well  as  power  and  love.  But  it  is,  above  all,  as 
wisdom  that  He  appears  to  us  in  creation,  and  thereby  it  is, 
above  all,  that  our  reason  can  find  some  way  to  Him.  For 
although  the  world,  by  its  immensity  and  infinity,  proclaims 
an  infinite  power,  such  a  power  is  not  more  the  attribute  of 
God  than  of  His  opposite.  No  doubt  the  world  affords  us 
proofs  of  goodness,  or,  at  least,  there  are  many  good  things 
in  the  universe ;  but  there  are  also  many  bad  things,  and  we 
know  that  a  blind  power  might  produce  by  chance  both  good 
and  evil,  as  water  is  a  benefit  to  him  who  is  thirsty  and  a 
plague  to  him  whom  it  inundates.  But  what  a  blind  power 
cannot  simulate  are  wise  and  industrious  works,  made  with 
art.  The  apparent  disorders  that  may  be  found  mingled  with 
these  wise  works  prove  nothing  against  them,  for  it  is  not 
here  as  with  goodness.  One  may  be  good  by  chance ;  one 
cannot  be  wise  by  chance.  We  can  understand  that  an 
apparent  disorder  is  accidentally  met  with  in  a  work  of  wis- 
dom, but  not  that  a  wise  combination,  and  even  a  thousand 
million  wise  combinations,  are  accidentally  shown  in  a  blind 
production. 

Some  philosophers  of  these  last  times,  who  combine  with 
extreme  subtlety  sentimental  tendencies,  have,  above  all, 
characterised  the  nature  of  God  by  love,  and  seem  to  have 
disdained  wisdom  as  too  vulgar  an  attribute.      It  seems  it 


THE   PURE   IDEA  AND   CREATIVE   ACTIVITY.  411 

was  110  very  great  affair  to  know  how  to  make  a  fly's  wing ; 
and,  as  proof  of  final  causes,  they  will  mention  attraction, 
aspiration,  tendency,  love  —  rarely  art,  artifice,  skill,  knowl- 
edge. But  attractions  and  tendencies  may  be  reconciled  with 
the  idea  of  a  blind  and  dissolute  force,  which  casts  away  its 
surplus,  and  diffuses  at  once  life  and  death.  Such  facts  do 
not  prove  more  in  favour  of  Providence  than  its  opposite. 
The  art  of  nature,  on  the  other  hand,  is  a  'brilliant  and 
prerogative '  fact,  as  Bacon  says,  in  presence  of  which  all 
theories  of  fortuitous  combinations  and  of  blind  instinct  will 
alwa^^s  be  shipwrecked.  It  is  also  a  fact  from  which  one 
cannot  escape  by  indifference,  by  forgetting  the  problem,  by 
a  sort  of  design  of  not  receiving.  One  may  cease  to  ask 
whether  the  world  is  finite  or  infinite,  if  it  has  had  a  begin- 
ning or  will  have  an  end  ;  for  nothing  obliges  us  to  put  these 
questions  to  ourselves.  But  one  will  never  see  a  flower,  a 
bird,  or  a  human  organism  without  experiencing  a  wonder  that 
Spinoza  rightly  calls  '  stupid,'  for  it  amounts  to  stupefaction. 
Finality  is  in  some  sort  the  onl}'-  idea  that  is  necessarily 
implicated  in  experience.  I  can  consult  experience  without 
thinking  of  the  absolute ;  I  can  see  things  beside  others  with- 
out thinking  of  infinite  space ;  I  can  neglect  causality  as  an 
active  power,  and  replace  it  by  the  relation  of  the  antecedent 
to  the  consequent,  or  by  the  generalization  of  phenomena. 
But  how  can  I  see  an  eye  without  thinking  that  it  is  made 
in  order  to  see,  so  far,  at  least,  as  I  think  as  a  man,  and  not 
as  a  systematic  philosopher  ?  The  in  order  to,  however,  does 
not  occur  to  the  senses,  is  not  a  phenomenon  of  experience. 
It  is  an  idea,  only  an  idea ;  but  an  idea  so  bound  to  experi- 
ence that  it  seems  to  make  but  one  with  it.  What  is  vulgar 
in  the  idea  of  finality  is  precisely  what  constitutes  its  high 
metaphysical  value.  For  the  more  that  metaphysic  connects 
itself  with  the  common  reason,  the  more  chance  has  it  of 
being  a  solid  and  necessar}^  science.  The  more  it  rarifies  its 
conceptions,  the  more  ground  will  it  give  for  believing  that 
they  are  only  the  artificial  creations  of  an  overwrought  brain. 


412  BOOK  II.  CHAPTER  IV. 

This  is  why  we  have  specially  given  ourselves  in  this  whole 
book  to  analyze  and  interpret  the  idea  of  combination,  which 
at  all  times  has  been  what  most  struck  the  vulgar.  It  is 
combination — that  is  to  say,  the  rencounter  of  a  very  great 
number  of  heterogeneous  elements  in  a  single  and  determinate 
effect  —  that  is  the  decisive  reason  of  finality.  The  agreement 
and  proportion  existing  between  such  a  rencounter  and  such 
an  effect  would  be  a  mere  coincidence  (that  is,  an  effect  with- 
out a  cause)  if  the  effect  to  be  reached  were  not  itself  the 
cause  of  the  combination.  Mechanism,  in  explaining  the 
production  of  each  effect  by  its  own  cause,  does  not  explain 
the  production  of  an  effect  by  the  rencounter  and  agreement  of 
causes.  It  is  thus  condemned,  whatever  effort  it  may  make 
to  dissemble  such  nonsense,  to  explain  the  universe  by  the 
fortuitous,  —  that  is,  by  chance.  Fortunate  rencounters, 
favourable  circumstances,  unforeseen  coincidences  must  be 
multiplied  without  end,  and  continually  increase  in  number, 
as  the  universe  passes  from  one  degree  to  another,  from  one 
order  of  phenomena  to  another.  Is  it  sought  to  explain  this 
faculty  of  combination  which  nature  possesses,  and  which  is 
like  that  of  the  industrious  animals  and  the  innate  art  of 
insects,  by  an  analogous  cause,  —  that  is  to  say,  by  a  sort  of  in- 
stinct, —  nature  proceeding  to  its  end,  like  the  animal  itself, 
without  knowing  and  without  willing  it,  by  an  innate  ten- 
dency? In  admitting  such  a  hypothesis,  we  should  do  noth- 
ing but  state  the  very  fact  of  combination,  while  assigning  to 
it  some  unknown  cause,  called  instinct,  by  analogy,  but  which 
would  tell  nothing  more  than  the  fact  to  be  explained  — 
namely,  that  nature  goes  towards  ends.  The  only  way  in 
which  we  could  conceive  an  end  is  to  view  it  as  a  predetermined 
effect.  But  how  can  an  effect  be  predetermined  except  so  far 
as  it  is  designed  beforehand,  and  preconceived  in  the  efficient 
cause  called  to  produce  it  ?  And  can  this  preconception  or 
predestination  be  for  us  anything  but  the  idea  of  the  effect? 
And,  in  fine,  what  can  an  idea  be  but  an  intellectual  act, 
present  to  a  mind  in  a  consciousness  ? 


THE  PURE   IDEA  AND   CREATIVE   ACTIVITY.  413 

Take  away  consciousness  from  an  intellect, lal  act,  and  what 
will  remain  but  an  empty  dead  concept,  a  potential  concept? 
Take  away  this  concept  itself  from  the  efficient  cause,  and 
what  will  remain  but  an  indeterminate  tendency,  which 
nothing  will  lead  towards  one  effect  rather  than  another? 
Take  away  even  this  tendency,  and  what  will  remain? 
Nothing  —  at  least,  nothing  that  can  serve  to  connect  the 
present  with  the  future ;  nothing  that  can  explain  the  ren- 
counter of  causes  with  the  effect.  This  rencounter  being  the 
problem  to  be  solved,  the  knot  to  untie,  even  the  hypothesis 
of  tendency  Qopfxyj,  opeii'?')  establishes  a  certain  intermediary 
between  cause  and  effect ;  the  hypothesis  of  the  concept  (Aoyos 
o--ep/iaT6Kos)  adds  to  it  a  new  intermediary  ;  the  conscious 
concept  (voT/o-is  vorja-rjo}';'),  sucli  is  the  third  degree,  such  is 
the  true  link  of  cause  and  effect.  There  the  range  of  our 
vision  stops  ;  bej^ond  begins  the  region  of  the  Unknowable, 
which  the  Gnostics  admirably  called  the  Abyss  and  Silence. 
We  too  keenly  feel  the  limits  of  our  reason  to  make  our 
own  conceptions  the  measure  of  the  Absolute  Being ;  but  we 
have  too  much  confidence  in  His  veracity  and  goodness  not 
to  believe  that  human  conceptions  have  a  legitimate  and 
necessary  relation  to  things  as  they  are  in  themselves.  If, 
then,  we  have  been  able  suitably  to  use  our  reason,  if  we 
have  obeyed  as  strictly  as  possible  the  severe  rules  of  the 
philosophic  method,  we  are  entitled  to  believe  that  the 
liighest  hypothesis  that  the  human  mind  can  form  regarding 
the  supreme  cause  of  the  universe  would  not  be  contradicted, 
but  rather  would  be  confirmed  and  cleared  of  its  obscurities,  if 
it  were  given  to  us,  as  the  theologians  say,  to  see  God  face  to 
face  by  a  direct  and  immediate  vision.  Such  a  hypothesis 
may  well  be  but  an  approximation  to  the  truth,  and  a  human 
representation  of  the  divine  nature  ;  but  although  inadequate 
to  its  object,  it  does  not  follow  that  it  is  unfaithful  to  it.  It 
is  its  projection  into  a  finite  consciousness,  its  translation  into 
the  language  of  men,  which  is  all  that  philosophy  can  demand. 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE  SUPREME  END  OF  NATURE. 

rpHE  doctrine  of  final  causes  cannot  escape,  as  it  would 
-^  seem,  a  final  problem.  If  each  of  the  things  of  the 
universe,  taken  separately,  has  been  produced  for  another,  for 
what,  to  what  end,  have  they,  taken  altogether,  been  made? 
Unity  of  cause  supposes  unity  of  end.  If  a  single  cause 
has  made  all,  it  must  have  made  all  for  a  single  end ;  and  as 
the  cause  is  absolute,  the  end  must  be  absolute.  In  fine,  as 
there  are  not  two  absolutes,  the  cause  and  the  end  must  be 
identical,  and,  consequently,  God  must  have  made  the  world 
for  Himself. 

Here  the  difficulties  commence.  If  God  has  made  the 
world  for  Himself,  it  is  evidently  to  enjoy  it,  to  find  His 
satisfaction  and  happiness  in  it,  or  else  to  glorify  Himself. 
The  common  theological  doctrine  also  is  that  God  has  made 
the  world  for  His  glory.  But  if  it  be  so,  whatever  be  the 
profit  that  God  derives  from  the  world  —  glory,  disinterested 
joy,  esthetic  satisfaction  —  it  matters  little :  in  any  case,  He  was 
without  that  joy  before  He  created  the  world.  He  created  it 
to  procure  it.  Thus  He  was  deprived  of  something  before 
the  creation,  and  therefore  He  was  not  perfect.  For  the 
perfect,  as  Bossuet  says,  'is  the  being  to  whom  nothing  is 
awanting.'  To  suppose  that  God  created  the  world  for  Him- 
self, is  thus  to  attribute  to  Him  lack  and  privation.  '  This 
doctrine,'  says  Spinoza,  '  destroys  the  perfection  of  God,  for  if 
God  acts  for  an  end.  He  necessarily  desires  something  of  which 
He  is  deprived.  And  although  theologians  and  metaphysicians 
distinguish  between  an  end  pursued  hy  indigence  and  an  end 
hy  assimilation^  they  yet  avow  that  God  has  made   all   for 

414 


THE   SUPREME   END   OF  NATURE.  415 

Plimsolf,  and  not  for  the  things  He  was  to  create,  seeing  that 
it  was  impossible  before  creation  to  assign  any  other  end 
for  the  action  of  God  than  God  Himself;  and  in  this  way 
they  are  forced  to  admit  that  all  the  objects  that  God  pro- 
posed to  Himself,  while  arranging  certain  means  to  attain 
them,  God  had  been  at  one  time  without,  and  had  desired  to 
possess  them.' 

Another  solution,  which  is  not  opposed  to  the  preceding, 
and  which  is  subordinate  to  it,  is  that  God  has  created  the 
world  for  man,  and  man  himself  to  honour  and  serve  Him. 
But  we  have  already  said  how  narrow  such  a  doctrine  is,  that 
only  sees  man  in  the  world,  and  refers  everything  to  him. 
This  anthropocentrie  doctrine,  as  it  has  been  called,  appears  to 
be  connected  with  the  geocentric  doctrine,  that  made  the  earth 
the  centre  of  the  world,  and  ought  to  disappear  with  it.  The 
greatest  philosophers  of  the  17th  century,  Descartes  and 
Leibnitz,  have  expressly  disavowed  it :  '  For,'  says  Descartes, 
'  even  if  it  be  a  pious  and  good  thought,  as  regards  morals,  to 
believe  that  God  made  all  things  for  us,  yet  it  is  not  at  all 
probable  that  all  things  have  been  made  for  us  in  such  a  way 
that  God  had  no  other  end  in  creating  them,  .  .  .  for  we 
cannot  doubt  that  there  is  an  infinity  of  things  that  are  now 
in  the  world,  or  that  have  formerly  been  and  have  now 
entirely  ceased  to  be,  without  any  man  having  ever  seen 
or  known  them,  and  that  have  never  served  him  for  any 
purpose.' 

If,  then,  the  end  of  the  universe  can  neither  be  God  nor 
man  (nor  a  fortiori  the  creatures  inferior  to  man),  it  seems  to 
follow  that  we  can  conceive  no  end  for  the  universe,  which 
appears  to  invalidate  the  whole  doctrine  of  final  causes. 

No  doubt,  it  is  always  allowable  to  a  philosopher,  as 
Descartes  here  does,  to  suspend  his  judgment,  and  to  pause 
in  ignorance :  this  is  a  natural  right  in  philosophy.  We  by 
no  means  admit  that  we  should  be  told:  Since  you  are 
ignorant  of  such  a  thing,  it  follows  that  you  know  nothing. 
Thus,  even  if  the  first  causes  were  unknown,  it  would  not 


4l6  BOOK  II.  CHAPTER  V. 

follow  that  there  are  no  second  causes ;  and  even  though  the 
last  ends  should  escape  us,  we  would  not  therefore  be  obliged 
to  remain  ignorant  of  the  existence  of  secondary  ends.  In 
fine,  as  we  rise  from  second  causes  to  the  first  cause,  with- 
out knowing  how  they  communicate  with  it,  it  is  the  same 
with  the  relation  of  secondary  ends  to  the  last  ends.  But, 
indeed,  the  argument  ad  ignorantiam  ought  only  to  be  em- 
ployed in  the  last  extremity. 

Another  hypothesis  hcis  recently  been  proposed  to  explain 
the  wherefore  of  creation.  '  It  would  seem,'  says  an  eminent 
philosopher,  '  that  one  cannot  comprehend  the  origin  of  an 
existence  inferior  to  the  absolute  existence,  except  as  the 
result  of  a  voluntary  determination,  whereby  that  high 
existence  has  spontaneously  moderated,  mortified,  extin- 
guished, so  to  say,  something  of  its  omnipotent  activity. 
God  has  made  all  out  of  nothing,  of  that  relative  nothingness 
that  is  the  possible,  for  He  was  first  the  author  of  this  noth- 
ingness, as  He  was  of  being.  From  that  which  He  annulled 
in  some  sort  and  annihilated  of  the  infinite  plenitude  of  His 
being  {se  ipsum  exinanivit').  He  has  derived  by  a  sort  of 
awakening  and  resurrection  all  that  exists.'  ^ 

This  doctrine,  as  we  see,  instead  of  explaining  creation  by 
a  want,  a  desire,  or  an  imperfection  of  the  Creator,  would 
explain  it,  on  the  contrary,  by  a  superabundance,  an  excess, 
a  sort  of  plenitude,  God  having  annihilated  a  part  of  Himself 
to  make  the  world  of  it.  Such  a  hypothesis  does  not  appear 
much  more  admissible  than  the  inverse  doctrine.  We  are  not 
less  unfaithful  to  the  notion  of  a  perfect  being  in  attributing 
to  it  superfluity,  a  sort  of  plethora  of  being,  of  which  it  should 
abandon  a  part  as  the  gravid  female  casts  its  young,  than  in 
representing  it  as  a  germ  that  develops  and  grows.  We  admit 
that  the  supreme  name  of  God  is  '  grace,  gift,  liberality  ; "  but 
never  has  it  been  said  that  the  Christian  God  '  creates  the 
creature  from  His  own  being : '  that  is  an  essentially  Oriental 
and  non-Christian  notion.  The  Christian  nihilum  is  a  true 
1  Ravaisaon,  Fhil.  du  19/ne  slide,  p.  262. 


THE   SUPREME   END   OF  NATURE.  417 

nihilum,  and  not  a  part  of  the  divine  substance  anniLilated."' 
It  is,  as  it  would  seem,  profoundly  to  alter  the  Christian 
dogma  to  maintain  that  the  world  was  made  of  something, 
even  were  that  something  a  part  of  the  divine  substance.  We 
cannot  better  reply  to  this  hypothesis  than  by  opposing  the 
author  to  himself :  '  God  does  nut  pass  entirely  into  things,' 
says  he  elsewhere,  in  summing  up  the  doctrine  of  Philo  ;  '  nor 
does  He  give  them,  properly  speaking,  a  part  of  Hwiself.  He 
gives.  He  communicates,  Himself,  and  yet  He  remains  in  Him- 
self in  His  pristine  integrity.  N^otJmig  comes  from  God  hy 
separation,  but  by  a  sort  of  extension  that  takes  nothing  from 
Him.  Our  soul  is  something  that  comes  from  the  divine  soul, 
and  is  not  a  section  of  it.''  ^  In  this  interpretation,  much 
nearer  the  truth,  the  world  is  not  born  of  the  superfluity  of 
God,  of  a  part  of  Himself  which  He  had  annihilated.  Only 
the  word  extension  (iKT^viTaC)  is  still  saying  too  much  —  it 
^ives  too  much  room  for  the  doctrine  of  emanation  ;  and  God 
is  no  more  augmented  than  diminished  by  creation.  Creation 
can  thus  be  considered  as  a  gratuitous  gift,  without  one  being 
obliged  to  have  recourse  to  the  desperate  hypothesis  of  a  God 
who  annuls  Himself  in  creating.  This  metaphysical  hypoth- 
esis adds  nothing  in  point  of  probability  and  clearness  to 
the  only  doctrine  that  can  explain  creation  —  the  doctrine  of 
divine  love. 

We  are  thus  brought  back  to  the  previous  dilemma. 
Either  the  supreme  cause  acts  for  an  end  adequate  to  itself, 
—  that  is  to  say,  absolute,  and  that  end  can  only  be  itself, 
but  in  that  case  it  wants  something  to  be  entirely  what  it 
ought  to  be,  and  thus  it  is  not  perfect,  it  is  not  God,  —  or  else 
the  supreme  cause  acts  for  an  end  that  is  not  itself, — for 
example,  the  welfare  of  created  beings,  —  and  then  the  end 
is  not  adequate  to  the  cause.     The  absolute  being  acts  for  a 

1  M.  Eavaissou  here  confounds  and  involves  in  his  explanation  two  distinci 
dogmas  —  incarnation  and  creation.  Creation  already  seems  an  incarnation. 
This  is  to  transform  Christianity  into  Brahminism  or  Gnosticism,  as  M.  A, 
Franck  has  justly  remarked. 

-  Ravaisson,  Essai  sur  la  M^taph.  d'Aristote,  t.  li.  p.  306. 


418  BOOK  II.  CHAPTER  V. 

relative  end  ;  the  infinite  being  for  a  finite  end.  We  cannot 
seemingly  escape  from  this  alternative. 

The  difficulty  raised  by  Spinoza  would  go  much  farther 
than  he  imagines.  It  is  only  a  particular  case  of  the  general 
question  of  the  relations  of  the  finite  to  the  infinite.  In 
whatever  manner  this  relation  is  conceived,  it  may  still  be 
said  that,  if  the  infinite  did  not  remain  eternally  alone,  it  is 
because  it  needed  the  finite  to  exist.  Thus,  whether  it  be 
held  that  God  produced  the  world  by  a  necessary  emanation, 
or  that  He  created  it  freely,  the  objection  still  remains  the 
same.  Why  did  He  create  it?  Why  did  He  not  remain 
wrapped  up  in  Himself?  The  insoluble  problem  is  this: 
,  Why  is  there  anything  but  God  ?  ^  And  to  solve  that  prob- 
lem  one  would  need  to  be  God.  But  since  the  world  exists, 
it  cannot  be  in  contradiction  to  the  divine  nature.  To  say 
that  this  existence  of  the  world  has  an  end,  and  that  that 
end  is  God,  is  not  an  additional  difficulty. 

The  whole  difficulty  is  to  know  how  God  can  love  any- 
thing but  Himself;  but  it  is  the  same  difficulty  as  to  know 
how  God  can  think  anything  but  Himself.  That  other  thing 
can,  according  to  us,  coexist  with  God  without  either  increas- 
ing or  diminishing  Him,  without  being  added  to  Him  or  sub- 
tracted from  Him,  because  it  is  not  of  a  common  measure 
with  Him.  No  doubt  this  being  has  its  root  in  Him,  but 
eminenter,  as  the  Schoolmen  say,  in  this  sense,  that,  in  the 
idea  of  the  absolute  and  the  infinite,  there  is  contained  a 
priori  the  possibility  of  an  infinite  multiplication  of  being, 
without  any  change  in  the  divine  substance.  This  coexist- 
ence once  admitted  (and  it  is  admitted  by  all  philosophers 
who  admit  at  once  God  and  the  world),  the  wherefore  of 
creation  can  only  be  sought  in  the  motive  of  good.  It  is  by 
goodness  that  Plato,  as  well  as  Christianity,  explains  the 
production  of  things. 

If  it  be  held  absolutely  that  God  can  have  no  other  end 
/  than  Himself,  creation  is  inexplicable  ;  for,  as  already  possess- 
1   See  Saisset,  Philos.  Rdig.  Part  ii.  3d  Meditation. 


f 


THE   SUPREME   END   OF  NATURE.  419 

ing  Himself,  why  should  He  still  seek  Himself  in  a  round- 
about way?  If  it  were  Himself  He  sought  through  the 
world,  a  want  and  desire  would  then  be  legitimately  ascribed 
to  Him. 

To  solve  this  problem,  Malebranche  had  uttered  this  sin- 
gular and  profound  thought,  that  the  end  of  creation  was 
the  incarnation  of  Jesus  Christ.  It  was  in  prevision  of  the 
incarnation  that  the  world  had  been  made.  The  incarnation, 
in  place  of  being  a  miracle,  on  this  hypothesis,  was  reason 
itself,  the  ultimate  law  of  the  universe.  '  God,'  he  says, 
'  finds  in  the  incarnation  of  the  Word  a  motive,  not  invinci- 
ble, but  sufficient  to  take  the  part  of  creator,  a  part  little 
worthy  of  Him  without  this  denouement  which  He  finds  in 
His  wisdom  to  satisfy  His  goodness.'  ^  This  extraordinary 
doctrine  only  escapes  the  philosophical  difficulty  to  compro- 
mise theology.  If  the  incarnation  only  took  place  for  the 
glory  of  God,  where  is  the  merit  of  the  Redeemer  ?  What 
would  become  of  the  love  and  gratitude  that  are  due  to 
Him  ?  But  if  we  separate  from  this  hypothesis  all  that  re- 
lates to  positive  Christian  dogma,  there  remains  then  the 
Brahminical  doctrine  of  incarnation,  —  that  is  to  say,  pure 
pantheism.  We  have  no  longer  to  ask  why  God  created  the 
world,  since  the  world  is  Himself. 

Malebranche  admirably  says  that  the  world  is  a  '  profane ' 
work,  and  that  to  be  worthy  of  God  it  must  become  a  '  divine ' 
work.  But  to  be  divine  must  it  contain  God  in  substance  ? 
and  is  it  not  enough  that  it  contain  Him  by  participation, 
Kotvwvta?  All  that  proceeds  from  God  is  divine,  from  that 
very  fact,  and  so  much  the  more  as  it  contains  more  divine 
expression.  That  the  creation  be  worthy  of  God,  it  is  enough 
that  the  act  itself  be  divine ;  it  is  not  necessary  that  the 
terminus  of  the  act  be  so. 

The  word  end  may  signify  two  things :  either  the  motive 
of  the  creative  act,  or  the  terminus  of  that  act.     God  may  act 

1  Entretiens  Metaphys.  ix.  1.  See  Philosophie  de  Malebranche,  by  Olid 
Laprune,  tome  i.  chap.  vii.  p.  389. 


i20  BOOK  II.   CHAPTER  V. 

divinely  even  if  the  terminus  of  His  action  be  not  Himself. 
If  it  be  held  that  God  can  only  act  for  Himself,  it  must  be- 
held still  further  that  He  can  only  love  Himself  and  will 
Himself;  hence  creation  is  impossible,  and  yet  it  exists. 
If  creation  be  admitted,  or  the  coexistence  of  God  and  the 
world,  it  must  be  allowed  that  God  might  pass  beyond  Him- 
self ;  consequently,  that  the  terminus  of  His  action  might  be 
another  than  Himself.  For  the  act  to  be  divine,  it  is  enough 
that  the  motive  be  so.  Whether  that  motive  be  derived  from 
His  power,  His  wisdom,  or  His  goodness,  or  from  all  the- 
three  attributes  together,  or  even  though  that  motive  cannot 
be  represented  to  the  human  understanding,  it  is  enough  that 
we  conceive  the  possibility  of  it  to  prevent  the  act  from  losing 
its  divine  character,  even  if  its  terminus  should  remain  profane. 
If  God,  as  absolute  perfection,  cannot  have  created  the 
world  for  an  egoistic  end  (for  then  the  simplest  way  would 
be  not  to  create  at  all),  —  if,  on  the  other  hand.  He  cannot 
be  supposed  to  have  created  by  chance  and  sport  Zeus  cTrat^ci 
Koo-/x,o7ro67;o-as),  —  it  follows  that  He  can  only  have  made  the 
world  in  the  interest  of  created  beings,  —  that  is  to  say,  by 

goodness    (dya^o?  •^v   .   .   .   /SovXrjOeU  dya^a.  Trdi'Ta).       Sucll    is,    at 

least,  the  only  way  in  which  the  human  mind  can  conceive 
the  reason  of  creation ;  such  is,  translated  into  human  lan- 
guage, the  onl}^  hypothesis  that  allows  us  to  conceive  the 
relation  of  the  infinite  and  the  finite,  the  imperfect  and 
the  perfect,  the  creator  and  the  creature. 

But  evil?  —  Evil  could  only  have  been  to  the  divine  good- 
ness a  reason  for  not  creating,  if  it  behoved  in  the  nature  of 
things  to  outweigh  the  good  in  quantity;  for  that  there 
should  be  some  evil  in  the  creation  may  very  well  be  an 
inevitable  consequence  of  creation  itself,  as  the  Stoics,  the 
Alexandrians,  and  Leibnitz  have  proved.  Atheists  explain 
evil  by  saying  that  it  is  an  inevitable  consequence  of  natural 
laws.  This  explanation  is  precisely  the  justification  of  Prov- 
idence. If,  in  effect,  evil  is  a  consequence  of  the  laws  of 
nature,  either  there  must  have  been  no  nature,  or  evil  behoved 


THE   SUPREME  END   OF  NATURE.  421 

to  coexist  with  nature.  Let  us  suppose,  for  instance,  that 
pain  is  a  necessary  consequence  of  feeling ;  either  there  must 
have  been  no  sentient  beings,  or  it  was  necessary  that  they 
should  suffer.  The  whole  question,  then,  comes  to  be,  whether 
it  was  better  that  there  should  be  a  nature,  or  that  there 
should  be  none ;  that  there  should  be  sentient  beings,  or  that 
there  should  be  none.  If  death  is  the  consequence  of  life,  God 
could  only  prevent  death  by  suppressing  life.  God  is  then 
impotent,  you  will  say.  This  difficulty  has  been  sufficiently 
answered.  All  creation  implies  condition  and  limitation,  and 
consequently  defect,  which  is  translated  into  suffering  in  the- 
region  of  feeling,  and  into  sin  in  the  region  of  the  will. 

The  only  question,  then,  is  whether  the  amount  of  evil  out- 
weighs the  amount  of  good  in  the  universe.  Only  in  this 
latter  case  would  Providence  be  without  excuse.  But  we 
believe  that  experience  and  reason  sufficiently  attest  that 
good,  not  evil,  most  prevails,  not  only  in  the  universe  in 
general,  but  in  human  life  in  j)articular.  Leibnitz  wittily 
said :  '  There  are  more  houses  than  hospitals ; '  and  one  of  his 
disciples,  carrying  his  thought  farther,  added :  '  There  are 
more  cooks  than  doctors.'  It  is  difficult,  for  the  rest,  to  decide 
such  a  question,  if  we  limit  ourselves  to  appealing  to  the 
facts  and  the  humour  of  each  one ;  the  decision  will  too 
much  depend  on  imagination  and  feeling.  An  ardent  and 
sombre  imagination  will  take  all  for  evil;  a  sweet  and 
amiable  imagination  will  regard  all  as  good.  There  must  be 
other  principles  in  order  to  decide.  But  if  we  ascend  to 
principles,  I  think  the  word  evil  can  have  only  one  precise 
sense  in  philosophy,  —  namely,  a  principle  of  destruction,  — 
while  good,  on  the  other  hand,  is  a  principle  of  conservation. 
Apart  from  this  there  is  nothing  but  arbitrariness  and  fantasy. 
These  definitions  being  stated,  what  manifestly  proves  that 
good  outweighs  evil  is  the  fact  that  the  world  exists.  Wher- 
ever the  principle  of  destruction  prevails  over  the  contrary 
principle,  nothing  continues,  and  nothing  can  even  be  formed. 
A  people  devoted   to  anarchy   necessarily   dissolves,   or   is 


422  BOOK  II.  CHAPTER  V. 

absorbed  by  others  more  powerful.  But  it  is  a  certain  fact 
that  the  world  continues,  and  has  done  so  long  enough  to 
assure  us  that  it  is  not  by  accident.  This  is  a  sufficient  proof 
that  in  the  universe,  taken  as  a  whole,  order  prevails  over 
disorder.  Nay,  more,  not  only  does  the  world  endure,  but 
science  teaches  us  that  it  has  always  gone  from  the  simple 
to  the  complex,  from  the  less  to  the  more  perfect.  But  the 
more  complex  a  mechanism,  the  more  difficult  is  it  to  pre- 
serve. Therefore  the  conservative  force  of  the  universe  must 
always  go  on  increasing  ;  or  rather,  the  principle  of  good  that 
is  in  the  universe  must  not  only  be  conservative,  but  organiz- 
ing, creative,  promotive.  There  must  be  enough  of  good  to 
overflow  in  new  creations,  and  in  creations  more  and  more 
complicated. 

Now  these  principles  may  be  applied,  not  only  to  the 
.abstract  good  of  the  universe  in  general,  but  also  to  felt  good 
—  to  the  good  of  sentient  and  conscious  beings  in  particular. 
In  effect,  what  is  true  of  good  and  evil  in  themselves,  is  true 
>of  pleasure  and  pain.  Pleasure  must  be  a  principle  of  con- 
servation, and  pain  a  principle  of  destruction  ;  and  from  the 
simple  fact  that  humanity  lasts,  pain  must  be  infinitely  less 
-diffused  than  pleasure.  Schopenhauer,  the  pessimist  philos- 
opher par  excelletice,  thinks  he  can  philosophically  demonstra'^^e 
the  predominance  of  pain  over  pleasure  ;  and  he  reasons  thus : 
'  All  life  is  summed  up  in  effort,  and  effort  is  always  painful ; 
therefore  life  is  pain.'  This  argument  may  be  retorted  thus . 
'  Life  is  active  ;  but  action  is  always  accompanied  by  pleasure ; 
therefore  life  is  pleasure.'  And  this  latter  argument  seems  to 
me  much  more  solid  than  the  former.  It  is  by  no  means  true 
that  effort  is  always  painful.  On  the  contrary,  it  only  is  so 
exceptionally,  and  when  it  surpasses  our  strength ;  otherwise, 
a  certain  degree  of  effort  is  a  pleasure,  and  without  effort 
there  is  no  pleasure.  The  effort  that  must  be  made  to  climb 
a  mountain,  the  effort  of  a  hunter  in  the  pursuit  of  game,  or 
of  a  thinker  in  the  investigation- of  a  problem,  involves  more 
pleasure  than  pain ;  and  the  pain  is  only  a  seasoning  to  the 


THE   SUPREME   END   OF  NATURE.  423 

pleasure.  But  life  in  general,  in  a  state  of  health,  only 
demands  a  moderate  effort,  and  that  effort  is  just  what  is 
needed  to  feel  that  we  live.  Evil,  therefore,  does  not  come 
from  effort,  but  from  the  conflict  between  external  forces  and 
our  own.  But  now  no  one  can  prove  that  the  external 
forces  are  necessarily  victors  in  this  conflict ;  rather  the 
contrary  is  evident,  otherwise  the  human  race  would  not 
survive. 

Leibnitz  seems  to  believe  that  there  is  danger  in  maintain- 
ing that  the  welfare  of  the  creatures  is  the  only  end  that  God 
proposed  to  Himself  in  creating  the  world;  'for  then,'  he 
says,  '  no  sin  nor  misfortune  would  happen,  not  even  by  con- 
comitance. God  would  have  chosen  a  succession  of  possi- 
bilities, whence  all  these  evils  would  be  excluded.'  But  in 
speaking  of  the  good  of  created  beings,  we  can  mean  nothing 
but  '  the  greatest  good  possible,  salvd  sapientid,''  which  leaves 
intact  all  the  explanations  of  Leibnitz.  With  this  reservation, 
we  maintain  that  the  terminus  of  the  divine  action  can  only 
be  the  creature,  and  not  the  Creator ;  otherwise  He  would 
not  have  come  forth  from  Himself,  since  by  hypothesis  He  is 
absolute  and  perfect,  and  wants  nothing. 

Is  that  to  say,  however,  that  it  is  in  the  feeling  of  sentient 
and  living  beings  that  we  shall  find  that  end  without  which 
the  universe  would  not  deserve  to  exist?  No  doubt  the 
happiness  of  created  beings,  living  and  sentient,  is,  and  ought 
to  be,  one  of  the  ends  of  creation.  But  is  it  its  last  end? 
Is  there  in  happiness  (if  it  be  identified  with  the  good  of 
the  senses)  a  value  so  great,  that  God  should  have  decided  to 
create,  merely  on  behalf  of  our  fragile  and  transient  enjoy- 
ments ?  Because  God's  end  in  creating  was  not  the  absolute 
itself,  does  it  follow  that  He  could  act  for  an  end  containing 
nothing  of  the  absolute?  Can  we  attribute  to  the  Alraight}^ 
a  merely  human  goodness,  that  only  should  propose  to  give 
pleasures  like  a  mother  to  spoilt  children?  Must  not  His 
love  understand  our  good  in  a  higher  way  than  we  ourselves 
would  do  if  we  were  consulted?     But  if  there  are  creatures 


424     .  BOOK  II.  CHAPTER  V. 

that  have  only  feeling  as  their  lot,  enjoyment  is  for  them  the 
last  end.  But  they  themselves  are  only  relative  ends  to  the 
Creator;  and  as  to  the  creatures  in  whom  feeling  is  united 
to  reason,  the  ends  of  the  former  must  be  subordinated  to 
those  of  the  latter. 

Is  it,  then,  intelligence  (whether  in  man  or  in  any  other 
thinking  creature)  that  is  the  end  of  nature  ?  Does  nature 
exist,  as  the  Hindus  have  said,  to  be  contemplated  by  man  or 
by  some  reasoning  being?  'But,'  as  Kant  profoundly  says, 
'  it  is  not  man's  faculty  of  knowing,  the  theoretic  reason,  that 
gives  a  value  to  all  that  exists,  —  that  is  to  say,  man  does  not 
exist  that  there  may  be  one  to  contemplate  the  world.  In 
effect,  if  that  contemplation  only  shows  us  things  without  an 
end,  the  mere  fact  of  being  known  can  give  no  value  to  the 
world ;  and  we  must  already  suppose  a  final  end  for  it,  which 
itself  furnishes  an  end  for  the  contemplation  of  the  world.'  ^ 
Thus,  to  be  contemplated,  to  be  known,  is  only  one  of  the 
ends  of  the  existence  of  the  world,  and  there  must  be  still 
another  for  the  latter  to  have  any  value.  Knowledge  is, 
therefore,  not  the  absolute  end  of  the  universe. 

For  these  reasons  Kant  arrives  at  the  conclusion  that  the 
supreme  end  of  the  universe,  being  neither  in  feeling  nor 
in  the  contemplative  intelligence,  can  only  be  in  morality. 
'  The  most  vulgar  minds,'  says  he,  '  agree  in  replying  that 
man  can  only  be  the  final  end  of  the  creation  as  a  moral 
being.  What  purpose  does  it  serve,  they  will  ask,  that  this 
man  has  so  much  talent  and  activity,  that  relatively  to  his 
interests,  as  well  as  to  those  of  others,  he  has  so  much  value, 
if  he  is  without  a  good  will,  if,  as  regards  his  inner  man,  he  is 
only  an  object  of  contempt  ?  '  In  considering  not  only  man, 
but  every  moral  being  in  general,  as  the  end  of  creation,  '  we 
have  a  reason  for  being  warranted  to  regard  the  world  as  a 
system  of  final  causes.'  The  world  has  as  its  end  to  become 
the  theatre,  the  instrument,  and  the  object  of  morality.  In 
order  to  be  appropriated  to  that  end,  it  must  already  be 

1  Critique  of  the  Judgment,  §  Ixxxv. 


( 


THE   SUPREME  END   OF  NATURE.  425 

susceptible  of  finality ;  the  lower  degrees  must  be  the  steps 
whereby  nature  rises  to  its  last  terminus.  There  must  be  a 
succession  of  relative  ends,  to  render  possible  this  absolute  end. 

In  effect,  morality  alone  deserves  the  name  of  absolute 
end ;  and  hereby  the  antinomy  mentioned  above  finds  its 
solution.  God  can  only  come  forth  from  Himself  for  an 
absolute  end ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  if  He  pursue  this  ab- 
solute end,  it  seems  He  can  find  no  other  than  Himself,  and, 
consequently,  that  He  need  not  come  forth  from  Himself. 
But  it  is  one  thing  to  say,  God,  in  creating,  had  only  Him- 
self as  end;  and  another  thing  to  say,  God  had  for  end  a 
nature,  whose  end  should  be  Himself.  The  terminus  of  the 
divine  action  is  nature  ;  the  terminus  of  nature  is  God.  If  you 
suppress  the  first  of  these  propositions,  nature  would  have  no 
worth  by  itself:  why,  then,  should  God  have  created  it? 
Why  not  remain  at  rest  ?  If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  second 
be  suppressed,  nature  would  no  longer  have  any  final,  abso- 
lute end  ;  and  why,  again,  should  God  have  created  it  ?  But 
His  action  proceeds  from  Him,  inasmuch  as  He  creates  a  na- 
ture, and  it  is  just  this  nature,  as  created  nature,  that  is  His 
object ;  and  it  returns  to  Him,  in  that  this  nature,  not  being 
self-sufficient,  only  finds  its  signification,  its  reason  of  being, 
and  its  end  in  the  absolute. 

But  how  does  nature  assume  an  absolute  signification  ?  Is 
it  by  self-annihilation  in  the  absolute  ?  No ;  for  then  it  would 
have  been  much  simpler  not  to  create  it.  Is  it  in  being 
absorbed  in  it,  losing  itself  in  it,  and  forgetting  itself  ?  No ; 
these  are  so  many  forms  of  annihilation.  If  God  created 
nature,  it  was  that  it  should  be,  not  that  it  should  not  be  — 
to  live,  not  to  die.  The  end  of  nature  is,  therefore,  to  realize 
in  itself  the  absolute  as  far  as  possible,  or,  if  you  will,  it  is  to 
render  possible  the  realization  of  the  absolute  in  the  world. 
This  is  brought  to  pass  by  morality. 

Meanwhile,  let  us  not  forget  that  if  there  are  no  ends  in 
the  universe,  there  are  none  for  man  any  more  than  for  na- 
ture ;  that  there  is  no  reason  why  the  series  of  causes  should 


426  BOOK  II.  CHAPTER  V. 

be  mechanical  up  to  the  appearance  of  man,  and  become 
teleological  from  man  onwards.  If  mechanism  reigns  in 
nature,  it  reigns  everywhere,  and  in  ethics  as  well  as  in 
physics.  No  doubt,  there  might  still  be  subjective  and  con- 
tingent ends,  pleasure  or  utility ;  but  not  unconditional  and 
absolute,  not  truly  moral  ends.  Morality  is,  therefore,  at 
once  the  accomplishment  and  the  ultimate  proof  of  the  law 
of  finality. 


APPEI^DIX. 


I. 

THE   PROBLEM   OF  INDUCTION. 

(Book  i.  Chapter  i.  Page  26.) 

MLACHELIER,  the  author  of  a  very  remarkable  and 
•  striking  book  on  The  Foundation  of  Induction^  and 
whom  we  have  several  times  encountered  in  the  course  of 
these  studies,  has  stated  very  clearly  the  problem  of  induc- 
tion. But  when  he  proceeds  to  the  solution  of  this  problem, 
he  seems  to  us  to  fall  into  the  error  mentioned  by  Aristotle, 
and  which  he  calls  fj-cTafSaXXetv  cts  aXXo  yo/os,  passing  from 
one  genus  to  another.  He  states,  in  fact,  a  logical  problem, 
and  answers  it  by  a  metaphysical  solution.  How  does  one 
pass  from  some  to  all?  he  asks  (which  is  a  logical  difficulty). 
Thought  is  the  foundation  of  things,  he  replies.  True  or  false, 
this  reply  is  ontological,  and  does  not  touch  the  question.  In 
a  logical  point  of  view  the  author  seems  to  rest  satisfied  with 
the  Scottish  solution  —  namely,  belief  in  the  stability  of 
the  laws  of  nature.  He  merely  formulates  this  principle 
with  more  precision,  by  analyzing  it  into  two  others,  — 
the  principle  of  efficient  and  that  of  final  causes.^  He  then 
hastens  on  to  the  ontological  question,  which  is  not  to  the 
point,  or  which,  at  least,  does  nothing  to  solve  the  difficulty 
stated. 

Another  philosopher  who  has  handled  the  same  question, 
M.  Ch.  Waddington,2  seems,  on   the    other   hand,  to   have 

1  It  is,  besides,  still  a  question  whether  the  principle  of  final  causes  forms 
an  integral  part  of  the  inductive  principle.  "We  do  not  believe  it;  for,  as  we 
hold,  it  is  only  by  induction  that  we  can  rise  to  the  final  cause.  See  below, 
p.  431. 

2  Essuis  de  logique  (Paris,  1857),  Essay  vi.  p.  246  et  seq. 

427 


428  APPENDIX. 

put  his  finger  on  the  true  difficulty.  Precisely  expressed, 
it  is  as  follows  :  — '  What  means,'  he  asks,  '  this  pretended 
major.  The  laws  of  nature  are  general  and  stable?  It  means 
that  nature  is  subject  to  laws,  and  nothing  else.  But  with 
such  a  proposition,  the  cleverest  logician  could  not  prove  the 
truth  of  a  single  law.  Let  us  take,  for  instance,  this  common 
proposition.  All  bodies  fall.  This  sophism  will  be  given  us 
as  a  valid  reasoning :  Nature  is  subject  to  laws ;  but  some 
bodies  fall,  therefore  it  is  the  law  of  all  bodies  to  fall.'  The 
same  author  rightly  says,  again,  that  'if  this  belief  in  the 
stability  of  laws  were  capable  of  justifying  a  single  induction, 
it  would  justify  all.  Error  and  truth,  the  most  gratuitous 
hypotheses  and  the  most  constant  laws,  would  alike  be 
demonstrated.'  This  is,  in  fact,  the  real  difficulty.  The 
general  belief  in  the  stability  of  the  laws  of  nature,  were 
it  admitted  a  priori  as  a  principle,  can  be  of  no  use  to  deter- 
mine any  law  in  particular.  Even  if  I  allowed  that  laws  are 
constant,  or,  in  other  words,  that  there  are  laws  (for  law 
means  a  constant  rule),  that  would  not  convince  me  that  a 
given  phenomenon  is  a  law,  as,  for  instance,  the  fall  of  bodies 
left  to  themselves.  The  question  still  remains.  How  do  we 
know  that  it  is  a  law?  How  do  we  pass  from  the  particular 
to  the  general  ?  It  is  experience,  we  will  be  told,  that  decides. 
But  the  question  still  recurs;  for  experience  only  multiplies 
particular  cases,  and  still  I  ask,  by  what  sign  shall  I  recognise 
that  a  fact  ceases  to  be  accidental  and  becomes  a  general  law  ? 
Are  we  told,  by  repetition  ?  But  what,  then,  is  the  virtue  of 
repetition,  and  what  is  the  number  of  repeated  cases,  compared 
with  the  infinite,  to  warrant  me  to  affirm  that  the  induction 
is  made?  Such  is  the  persistent  difficulty,  the  solution  of 
which  we  think  we  have  found  in  the  principle  laid  down 
above — namely,  that  'the  agreement  and  the  coincidence  of 
phenomena  require  a  precise  reason,  and  that  with  a  proba- 
bility increasing  with  the  number  of  the  coincidences.' 

Let  us,  in  effect,  resume  the  inductive  question. 

We  ask  how,  from  a  certain  number  of  particular  experi- 
ences, we  can  infer  a  general  and  universal  law  without  excep- 
tion ?  For  instance,  how,  having  seen  water  boil  at  100  degrees 
a  certain  number  of  times,  we  can  conclude  that  the  same 
phenomenon  will  be  reproduced  in  the  same  circumstances  as 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  INDUCTION.  429 

often  as  the  temperature  is  at  100  degrees.^  It  is  a  problem ; 
for  although  the  fact  has  been  reproduced  very  often,  and  even 
always,  it  is  only,  after  all,  a  small  number  of  experiences 
compared  with  the  infinite.  But  we  affirm  infinitude  when 
we  say  that  everywhere  and  always  a  fact  will  be  reproduced. 

If  it  be  considered,  it  will  be  seen  that  the  real  difficulty 
is  not  to  conclude  from  the  present  to  the  future,  but  to 
characterise  and  interpret  the  present  state.  The  ques- 
tion is  not  whether  a  given  law,  once  proved,  will  be  stable 
and  immutable  (that  is  granted),  but  whether  a  given 
phenomenon  is  the  expression  of  a  law.  The  question  is 
not  Avhether  the  same  causes  will  produce  the  same  effects 
(that  is  granted),  but  whether  a  given  phenomenon  is  a  cause 
and  another  an  effect.  For  example,  I  will  allow  that  heat 
will  always  make  water  boil  at  100  degrees,  if  I  begin  by 
granting  that  it  is  really  the  heat  that  makes  the  water  boil,  — 
that  is,  if  I  grant  that  heat  is  the  cause  and  boiling  the  effect. 
But  that  is  the  whole  question.  If  I  grant  that,  I  at  once 
grant  that  it  is  a  law.  The  induction  is  made  ;  the  applica- 
tion to  the  future  and  to  all  times  is  only  a  conclusion. 

But,  now,  is  the  relation  which  I  have  already  proved  in 
fact  a  law  or  an  accident  ?  This  is  the  real  question.  Let 
us  suppose,  for  instance,  that  this  relation  is  not  a  law.  What 
does  that  mean?  Is  it  not  to  suppose  that  heat  is  not  a 
cause,  nor  boiling  an  effect?  If  this  be  so,  the  relation 
between  the  two  phenomena  is  not  real,  but  apparent,  not 
necessanj,  hwX  fortuitous  —  in  a  word,  the  effect  of  chance.^  If 
the  boiling  of  water  at  100  degrees  is  not  a  law  of  nature,  I 


1  This  example  lias  been  objected  to  as  being  a  sort  of  tautology  or  vicious 
circle;  for  it  is  said,  100  degrees  being  by  definition  the  temperature  of  boiling 
water,  to  say  that  water  will  always  boil  at  100  degrees  is  to  say  that  it  will  boil 
when  it  will  boil.  But  there  is  here  a  confusion  of  ideas.  No  doubt  by  usage 
the  term  100  degrees  has  become  synonymous  with  the  temperature  of  boiling 
water;  but  at  first  100  degrees  only  represented  a  division  of  the  thermometer. 
To  say  that  water  will  always  boil  at  100  degrees  Is  therefore  to  say  that  it  will 
always  raise  the  thermometer  to  the  same  level  when  it  boils.  The  boiling  is 
one  fact:  the  ascent  of  the  thermometric  column  is  another.  It  is  hj  no  means 
said  tliat  tliese  two  facts  will  always  go  together.  It  is  a  connection  established 
by  experience,  but  which  could  fail  if  the  induction  were  not  legitimate.  There 
is  here  not  the  shadow  of  tautology. 

2  "We  have  found  the  same  mode  of  reasoning  in  the  German  philosopher 
Mendelssohn  (see  Gerando,  Histoire  comparee,  part  i.  chap,  xv.,  and  the  note  ol 
.nur  Traits  elementaire  dephilosophie,  2d  edition,  p.  463). 


iSO  APPENDIX. 

must  then  suppose  that,  while  certain  causes  raise  the  tempera- 
ture to  100  degrees,  other  causes,  having  no  relation  to  the 
former,  have  always  coincided  at  the  same  time  to  make 
water  boil ;  if,  in  fact,  I  allowed  that  there  is  some  relation 
between  these  two  causes,  I  would  thereby  allow  that  there  is 
a  law.  If  I  doubt  whether  there  is  a  law,  it  is  because  I  do  not 
refuse  to  believe  that  chance  may  produce  a  constant  coinci- 
dence so  extraordinary.  But  this  is  what  we  justly  regard  as 
impossible  ;  and  here  is  the  true  inductive  principle,  —  here 
is  the  difference  between  true  and  false  inductions.  '  What 
difference  is  there,  in  fact,  as  we  said  before,^  between  this 
certain  proposition,  Water  boils  at  100  degrees,  and  this  other. 
An  eclipse  is  a  presage  of  public  calamities  ?  The  difference 
is,  that  in  the  former  case  the  coincidence  of  the  two  phenom- 
ena is  constant  and  without  exception,  and  that  in  the  latter 
the  coincidence  does  not  always  occur.  Now  chance  may  well 
bring  about  sometimes,  nay,  often,  a  coincidence  between  an 
eclipse  and  an  event  so  frequent  as  public  misfortunes ;  but 
reason  refuses  to  admit  that  chance  brings  about  a  constant 
coincidence  without  exception.  This  coincidence  must  have 
its  reason  of  being ;  the  reason  is,  that  one  of  these  phenom- 
ena is  the  cause  of  the  other,  or  that  the  two  phenomena- 
have  a  common  cause.'     In  other  words,  it  is  a  law. 

Hence  we  see  why  the  knot  of  the  inductive  problem  is  in 
the  experimental  method,  or  experimentation.  It  is  not  only 
a  process,  it  is  the  essence  of  induction  —  it  is  the  proof  of  it.^ 
In  fact,  by  the  suppression  of  presumed  causes  (per  rejee- 
tiones  dehitas)  we  set  in  relief  the  capital  fact  of  coincidence  ; 
by  the  method  of  concomitant  variations  we  render  it  still 
more  perceptible.  Finally,  by  calculation  applied  to  experi- 
ment, and  to  the  presumed  hypothesis,  drawing  beforehand 
the  most  remote  possible  consequences  from  the  facts,  —  conse- 
quences which  new  experiments  permit  us  to  verify,  —  we 
raise  new  coincidences  confirmatory  of  the  first,  and  unintelli- 
gible if  there  be  not  here  a  true  cause.  It  is  thus  that  rejjetitlon, 
which  would  be  insignificant  if  it  merely  had  reference  to  the 
number  of  the  facts  (since  we  are  always  equally  remote 
from  the  infinite),  — it  is  thus,  I  say,  that  repetition  acquires 
a  logical  value.     In  fact,  the  improbability  of  coincidences  is 

1  Chap.  i.  p.  26. 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  INDUCTION.  431 

the  greater  the  oftener  they  are  repeated.  From  this,  also, 
we  see  how  it  may  happen  that  a  single  experiment  suffices 
for  proof,  because  it  is  such  a  coincidence  as  could  scarcely 
occur  even  once,  had  it  not  its  reason  in  the  laws  of  nature. 
This  is  what  causes  great  scientists  rarely  to  mistake  the  worth 
of  a  significant  fact,  though  occurring  only  once.  It  is  said 
that  Sir  C.  Bell  would  not  repeat  the  famous  experiment  that 
established  the  diiference  between  the  motor  and  sensory 
nerves,  so  much  did  his  feelings  recoil  from  causing  animals 
to  suffer.  Does  any  one  believe  that  he  was,  therefore,  in 
any  doubt  of  his  discovery?  The  Abbe  Haiiy  lets  fall  a  piece 
of  quartz,  and  merely  b}'  observing  the  fracture,  he  at  once 
concludes  that  he  has  discovered  a  law  of  nature  ;  for  what  i& 
the  likelihood  that  a  mineral  should  break  by  chance  accord- 
ing to  the  laws  of  geometry  ?  So  in  a  thousand  cases.  The 
knot,  then,  is  not  in  the  repetition  itself,  but  in  the  fact  of 
the  coincidence ;  only  the  repetition  evidently  adds  much 
to  the  value  of  the  coincidences. 

The  first  affirmation  being  once  established,  the  rest  follows 
of  course,  and  the  application  to  the  future  no  longer  presents 
any  difficulty.  For  if  a  given  phenomenon  is  the  product  of  a 
given  cause,  it  manifestly  follows  that,  the  cause  being  given, 
the  phenomenon  will  follow ;  ^  as  Spinoza  says.  Ex  datd  causd 
determinatd  necessario  sequitur  effectus.  This  reciprocal  of  the 
principle  of  causality  is  as  true  as  it,  and  is  only  that  very 
principle  reversed. 

Induction  is  thus  composed,  in  our  view,  of  two  elements,, 
and  is  reducible  to  two  propositions,  the  one  synthetic,  the 
other  analytic.    The  first  is  this  :  Every  constant  coincidence 

1  It  is  here  that,  according  to  M.  Lachelier,  the  second  law,  or  law  of  final 
causes,  would  intervene,  which,  with  the  first  or  law  of  eflScient  causes,  would 
compose  the  inductive  principle.  We  do  not,  in  fact,  merely  affirm  this  hypo- 
thetical proposition :  (/"such  conditions  are  given,  such  an  effect  will  follow.  We 
aflSrm  a  categorical  proposition  —  namely,  that  such  conditions  are  in  fact  given. 
Our  confidence  towards  nature  is  not  problematical;  it  is  affirmative,  as  Kant 
would  say.  But  this  confidence  implies  that  nature  has  an  interest  in  preserv- 
ing the  order  of  things,  which  is  at  bottom  the  principle  of  finality.  —  We  do 
not  for  ourselves  believe  that  the  difference  between  the  if  and  the  that  (the  to 
el  and  the  rb  6ti)  has  so  great  a  range  here  as  the  author  would  make  out;  and  we 
still  resolve  the  difficulty  by  the  same  principle  as  above.  In  fact,  whatever  may 
be  the  future  stability  of  the  order  of  the  world,  it  at  all  events  holds  good  that 
this  order  has  existed  hitherto.  Now  this  order  is  the  resultant  of  an  infinite 
number  of  coincidences,  which  must  have  taken  place  to  produce  equilibrium, 


432  APPENDIX. 

of  phenomena  has  its  reason  of  being  (whether  in  the  causality 
of  one  of  the  phenomena  in  relation  to  the  others,  or  in  a  com- 
mon causality).  The  second  entirely  analytic  proposition  is 
this :  A  given  cause  (considered  in  the  same  point  of  view  and 
in  the  same  circumstances)  always  produces  the  same  effect 
which  has  once  been  given. 

Thus  the  real  difficulty  of  induction  is  not,  yet  once  more, 
the  application  to  the  future,  for  that  results  from  the  very 
nature  of  things.  It  is  in  the  proof  of  a  constant  coincidence 
between  two  phenomena.  But  it  is  in  the  demonstration  of 
this  coincidence  that  the  experimental  method  is  employed ; 
it  disengages  all  the  accessory  circumstances  to  preserve  ouly 
the  fact  and  its  determining  condition.  This  coincidence  once 
discovered,  it  is  no  longer  necessary  even  to  repeat  the  experi- 
ment very  often,  and  the  mind  at  once  infers  a  determinate 
relation  between  the  two  facts. 

We  have  just  explained  the  principle  of  induction.  Some- 
thing more  is  needed  for  finality.  But  it  is  still  the  same 
mode  of  reasoning ;  and  if  we  refuse  to  admit  the  one,  there 
is  no  reason  to  admit  the  other. 

In  fact,  the  same  reason  that  makes  us  suppose  that  every 
coincidence  of  phenomena  has  its  reason,  ought  also  to  make 
us  suppose  that  every  agreement  of  a  complex  whole  with  a 
future  phenomenon  more  or  less  remote  must  also  have  its 
Teason ;  and  if  this  reason  were  not  given  in  the  future  phe- 
nomenon itself,  it  would  necessarily  follow  that  the  agreement 
of  the  complex  whole  with  that  consequence,  so  well  prepared, 
would  be  a  fortuitous  rencounter.  This  is  the  objection  that 
absolute  mechanism  can  never  dispose  of.  It  is  obliged  to 
assign  a  considerable  part  to  the  fortuitous  —  in  other  words, 
to  chance.     But  by  parity  of  reason  I  might  as  well  say  that 

but  chance  cannot  have  brought  about  such  a  mass  of  coincidences.  Therefore 
the  order  of  the  world,  not  in  the  future,  but  in  the  past  and  the  jjresent,  sup- 
130ses  a  precise  cause,  a  cause  of  order.  Tliis  cause  being  given,  it  follows,  of 
course,  that  it  will  continue  to  act  conformably  to  its  nature;  in  other  words, 
that  order  will  last  as  long  as  we  perceive  no  indications  to  make  us  suspect  the 
contrary.  "What  proves  that  there  is  no  a  priori  belief  in  this,  is  that  Newton 
had  come  by  the  study  of  facts  to  believe  that  the  system  of  the  world  would 
become  deranged,  and  would  need  a  new  act  of  divine  power  to  re-establish  it; 
and,  again,  it  is  by  the  study  of  facts  that  this  doubt  has  been  set  aside.  Belief 
in  the  stability  of  nature  is  thus  only  one  of  the  results  of  induction,  in  place 
of  being  its  foundation. 


THE   PROBLEM   OF  INDUCTION.  433 

chance  is  the  primary  cause  of  every  coincidence,  that  all  is 
fortuitous,  accidental,  and  contingent  —  that  is,  that  there  is 
no  science.  In  fact,  if  it  is  not  repugnant  to  you  to  say  that 
the  extraordinary  harmony  and  the  amazing  finality  manifested 
in  the  sexes  are  only  a  result  of  concomitant  mechanical  causes, 
I  do  not  see  why  I  should  not  say  that  the  constant  correla- 
tion of  heat  and  dilatation,  of  clouds  and  lightning,  of  vibrations 
and  sound,  are  only  mere  rencounters,  accidental  coincidences 
of  certain  mechanical  causes  acting  separately,  each  in  their 
sphere,  without  any  agreement  or  reciprocal  action,  and  per- 
fectly strange  to  each  other.  It  matters  little,  it  will  be  said, 
that  from  the  point  of  view  of  things  in  themselves  these 
causes  and  effects  are  really  connected,  jDrovided  they  appear 
so  to  us ;  it  matters  little  that  they  are  divergent  and  strange 
causes,  that  are  found  by  chance  acting  together,  or  veritable 
connections  ;  it  is  enough  for  us  that  these  connections  appear 
in  experience  to  affirm  them,  and  we  do  not  go  farther. 
With  equal  right  we  can  reply :  It  matters  little  that  from 
the  point  of  view  of  things  in  themselves  it  may  be  supposed 
that  an  unintelligible  concomitance  of  mechanical  causes  may 
produce  the  agreement  of  means  and  ends ;  it  suffices  that 
this  agreement  be  given  me  in  experience,  to  warrant  me  to 
reason  as  if  it  resulted  from  a  veritable  intrinsic  concordance, 
and  from  an  objective  adaptation. 

It  is  said  that  finality  is  an  entirely  subjective  conception, 
which  cannot  be  justified  by  experiment.  By  this  it  is  e\d- 
dently  meant  that  the  principle  of  induction,  on  which  all  the 
positive  sciences  rest,  would,  on  the  other  hand,  be  verifiable 
by  experiment.  But  that  is  a  mistake,  and  the  difference 
sought  to  be  established  between  the  principle  of  finality  and 
the  inductive  principle  is  altogether  apparent.  In  other 
words,  I  can  no  more  verify  mechanical  causality  than  finality. 

Wherein  does  experimental  verification  in  fact  consist? 
It  consists  in  the  artificial  and  voluntary  reproduction  of  a 
certain  coincidence  of  phenomena  which  has  previously  been 
furnished  to  me  b}'  observation.  What,  then,  does  experiment 
do?  It  simply  multiplies  coincidences.  But  if  I  had  not 
already  this  preconception  in  my  mind,  that  every  constant  co- 
incidence has  its  reason  of  being  in  the  nature  of  things,  every 
new  fact  would  teach  me  nothing  more,  and  I  could  always 


434  APPENDIX. 

suppose  that  it  is  chance  that  brings  to  pass  such  an  apparent 
agreement  of  phenomena.  This  postulate,  then,  is  indispensa- 
ble to  science  — it  is  science  itself ;  and  yet  it  cannot  be  verified. 
It  is  not,  then,  superior  in  this  to  the  principle  of  finality. 
To  arrive  at  a  veritable  and  absolute  verification  of  induction, 
we  would  need,  on  the  one  hand,  to  exhaust  the  infinite  series 
of  phenomena,  and,  on  the  other,  to  know  the  essence  of  things 
in  themselves.  But  both  are  alike  impossible  for  us,  and  still 
no  scientist  doubts  the  truth  of  induction ;  and  it  does  not 
even  require  the  coincidence  of  facts  to  be  reproduced  very 
often  for  him  to  infer  a  necessary  and  essential  relation. 

It  ought  not,  then,  to  be  objected  to  the  principle  of  finality 
that  it  is  a  subjective  and  unverifiable  point  of  view,  for  that 
is  also  true  of  efficient  causalit3^  If  we  are  told  that  experi- 
ment has  more  and  more  brought  to  light  constant  connections, 
we  reply  that  the  same  experiment  has  more  and  more  brought 
to  light  relations  of  finality.  The  first  men  and  the  first  sages 
—  Socrates,  for  instance  —  were  only  struck  with  the  most 
apparent  ends,  —  the  legs  made  for  walking,  the  eyes  for 
seeing,  and  so  on.  But  in  proportion  as  science  has  fathomed 
the  organization  of  living  beings,  it  has  infinitely  multiplied 
the  relations  of  finality.  If  it  be  said  that  false  final  causes 
have  been  assumed,  we  reply  that  false  efiicient  causes  have 
been  assumed.  If  we  are  shown  in  nature  things  whose  end 
we  do  not  know,  we  reply  that  there  is  an  immensity  whose 
cause  we  do  not  know ;  that  even  if  there  are  some  that  ap- 
parently do  not  agree  with  the  principle  of  finality,  —  for 
instance,  monsters,  —  there  are  also  phenomena  that  may  have 
appeared  to  unreflecting  minds  to  depart  from  the  ordinary 
laws  of  causality  —  namely,  prodigies  and  miracles.  In  fine,  as 
the  entanglement  of  causes  limits  the  action  of  each  of  them, 
and  often  prevents  us  from  isolating  them,  so  the  entanglement 
of  ends  may  also  well  counteract  and  connect  them  so  as  to  pre- 
vent us  from  unravelling  them  with  precision.  In  a  word,  there 
is  a  perfect  parity  between  finality  and  causality  ;  and  he  who 
denies  the  former  might  just  as  well  deny  the  latter.  But  who- 
ever denies  causality  denies  science.  The  belief  in  finality,  so 
much  disputed  by  certain  scientists,  is  founded  on  precisely  the 
same  principle  as  the  belief  in  science  itself. 


11. 

CUVIER'S   LAW. 

(Book  i.  Chapter  i.  Page  47.) 

CUVIER'S  law,  as  a  whole,  remains  one  of  the  fundamental 
laws  of  zoology.  It  has,  however,  given  rise  to  various 
difficulties,  and  we  have  here  to  inquire  how  far  these  diffi- 
culties might  invalidate  the  deductions  we  liave  above  set 
forth. 

Blainville,  for  instance,  keenly  assails  the  claim  of  Cuvier 
and  his  disciples  to  be  able  to  reconstruct  a  lost  animal  from 
a  single  one  of  its  fragments,  in  virtue  of  the  law  of  correla- 
tion of  the  organs.  '  This  principle  may  be  true,"  he  says,^  '  of 
the  general  form  of  an  animal,  but  it  is  far  from  being  appli- 
cable to  each  fragment  of  each  of  the  parts.  One  may  infer, 
it  is  true,  from  the  form  of  the  bones  that  of  the  muscles, 
because  these  two  kinds  of  organs  are  made  to  produce 
together  one  single  function,  one  and  the  same  action,  which 
the  one  could  not  produce  without  the  other ;  still  this  is  true 
only  of  the  vertebrates.  .  .  .  But  to  infer,  even  from  the 
teeth,  the  form  and  proportion  of  the  skeleton,  becomes  impos- 
sible in  the  feline  genus.  The  teeth  all  show  us  a  carnivorous 
animal,  feeding  on  living  prey,  but  as  to  inferring  from  them 
the  osseous  system  of  a  tiger,  or  a  lion,  the  differences  are 
so  small  that  you  will  never  accomplish  this.  When  you 
come  to  the  different  species  of  lions,  only  distinguished  by 
their  hair,  the  one  having  tufts  of  hair  on  the  flanks,  the  other 
not,  it  would  be  impossible,  from  these  simple  parts  of  the 
skeleton,  to  distinguish  the  one  species  from  the  other.  .  ,  . 
M.  Cuvier  himself  found  his  principle  at  fault.  The  tafyrium 
giganteum^  which  he  had  determined  from  a  single  complete 
tooth,  turned  out  to  be,  when  the  whole  head  was  discovered, 
with  teeth  absolutely  the   same,  a  dinotherium,  an   extinct 

1  Blainville,  Histoire  des  sciences  de  V organisation,  t.  ill.  p.  398. 

436 


436  APPENDIX. 

animal,  which  is  not  a  tapir,  and  seems  to  be  an  aquatic 
pachyderm,  like  the  morse,  altogether  very  different.  This 
principle  of  M.  Cuvier  is,  therefore,  false  as  a  general  rule, 
even  confining  it  to  the  teeth,  where  yet  its  application  is 
more  frequently  possible.'  ^ 

These  observations  of  Blainville,  the  weight  of  which  it  is 
not  for  us  to  judge,  may  prove,  supposing  them  well  founded, 
that  the  range  of  Cuvier's  principle  must  not  be  exaggerated, 
and  that  it  were  an  illusion  to  think  that  with  any  fragment 
of  a  bone  one  could  reconstruct,  in  all  the  details  of  its 
organization,  an  extinct  animal.  But  it  is,  from  our  point  of 
view,  sufScient  that  it  may  be  done  for  a  certain  number  of 
animals,  and  for  the  general  form  of  the  skeleton.  Even  if 
such  a  method  should  not  yield  the  species,  but  only  the  genus 
or  the  family,  this  would  itself  be  a  very  important  principle  ; 
and  a  harmonious  connection,  though  reduced  to  the  most 
general  conditions  of  organization,  would  still  be  infinitely 
above  forces  of  a  purely  blind  nature ;  for  the  rest,  reserving 
entirely  the  explanation  of  such  correlations,  as  of  each  organ 
in  particular,  by  the  hypothesis  of  selection,  discussed  in  the 
eighth  chapter  of  our  first  part.  Setting  aside  this  hypoth- 
esis, and  every  other  of  the  same  kind,  for  the  present,  the 
only  point  we  would  here  maintain  is  that  the  more  or  lest> 
latitude  allowed  to  Cuvier's  law  by  naturalists  (of  which  they 
remain  sole  judges)  still  leaves  to  that  law  a  large  enough 
share  of  truth  to  warrant  our  inductions. 

Another  objection  taken  to  tliis  law  is  that,  supposing  it 
well  founded  as  regards  the  superior  animals,  and  particularly 
the  vertebrates,  to  which  alone  Cuvier  has  applied  it,  it  is  far 
from  being  so  as  regards  the  inferior  animals.  The  correlation 
of  the  whole  to  the  parts  in  these  animals  is  so  far  from  being 
strict,  that  they  may  be  cut  through  without  ceasing  to  live, 
and  that  these  sections  can  reproduce  the  entire  animaL 
This  takes  place  in  the  case  of  the  naiads,  hydras,  etc.  In 
these  animals  there  seems  to  be  no  more  connection  between 
the  parts  than  there  is  betAveen  the  different  parts  of  a 
mineral,  as  they  may  be  divided  without  being  destroyed. 
Thus  these  parts  are  not  reciprocallj^  means  and  ends  to  each 
other. 

1  Histoire  des  sciences  de  V organisation,  t.  iii.  p.  398. 


CUVIER'S  LAW.  437 

M.  Milne-Edwards  has  given  a  very  satisfactory  explana- 
tion of  this  singular  phenomenon. 

'  To  comprehend  this  phenomenon,'  he  says,  'in  appearance 
so  contrary  to  what  the  higher  animals  exhibit,  we  must  first 
of  all  examine  the  mode  of  organization  of  the  polyps  of  which 
we  have  just  spoken.  These  animals  are  too  minute  to  be  well 
studied  by  the  naked  eye  ;  but  when  observed  by  the  micro- 
scope, it  is  found  that  the  substance  of  their  body  is  identical 
throughout.  It  is  a  gelatinous  mass,  containing  small  fibres 
and  extremely  minute  globules,  and  in  which  no  distinct 
organ  is  perceptible.  But,  as  we  have  already  remarked, 
identity  in  the  organization  supposes  identity  in  the  mode  of 
action,  in  the  faculties.  It  follows  that  all  the  bodily  parts 
of  these  polyps,  having  the  same  structure,  must  fulfil  the 
same  functions;  each  of  them  must  concur  in  the  same 
manner  as  all  the  others  in  the  production  of  the  phenomenon 
of  which  the  totality  constitutes  life ;  and  the  loss  of  one  or 
other  of  these  parts  ought  not  to  involve  the  cessation  of  any 
of  its  acts.  But  if  that  is  true,  if  each  portion  of  the  body  of 
these  animals  can  feel,  move,  take  food,  and  reproduce  a  new 
being,  there  seems  no  reason  why  each  of  them,  after  having 
been  separated  from  the  rest,  might  not,  if  placed  in  favour- 
able circumstances,  continue  to  act  as  before,  and  why  each  of 
these  animal  fragments  might  not  produce  a  new  individual, 
and  perpetuate  its  species,  a  phenomenon  to  which  Tremblay's 
experiment  bears  witness.' 

This  explanation  shows  us  that  the  fact  in  question  is 
in  no  way  contrary  to  Cuvier's  law.  This  law  is  evidently 
only  applicable  to  the  case  in  which  organs  as  well  a& 
functions  are  specialized,  and  is  manifested  more  and  more 
in  proportion  as  the  division  of  labour  increases.  As  Mr. 
Herbert  Spencer  says,^  '  integration  is  in  proportion  to  dif- 
ferentiation.' 

Thus  it  is  no  wonder,  as  M.  de  Quatrefages  has  likewise 
remarked,  that  Cuvier's  law,  incontestable  in  the  higher  ani- 
mals, fails  in  the  lower  animal  kingdoms.  For  instance,  in  the 
molluscs,  according  to  this  naturalist,  great  changes  may  take 
place  in  certain  organs,  without  such  corresponding  changes 
in  the  relative  organs  as  might  have  been  expected.    Organic- 

^  See  further,  the  dissertation  entitled  Herbert  Spencer  and  Evolutionism. 


438  APPENDIX. 

forms  in  these  animals  are  not  connected  so  rigorously  and 
systematically  as  in  vertebrate  animals.  The  law  of  organic 
correlations  is  thus  only  a  relative,  not  an  absolute  law. 

It  may  be  conceived  that  the  conditions  of  animal  nature 
a,re  less  and  less  rigorous  in  proportion  as  we  descend  the 
scale.  Where  life  is  more  sluggish,  less  complex,  co-existences 
should  be  easier,  and  incompatibilities  rarer  between  the  dif- 
ferent organs.  Suppose  an  intelligent  animal :  this  fundamen- 
tal condition  immediately  implies  a  very  considerable  number 
of  secondary  conditions,  exceedingly  delicate,  bound  together 
most  exactly,  so  that,  one  failing,  the  whole  being  suffers  or 
perishes,  or  even  absolutely  cannot  be.  Suppose,  on  the  other 
hand,  a  living  animal  of  a  torpid  and  merel}^  vegetative  life,  in 
external  conditions  favourable  to  its  development ;  the  bond 
between  its  different  parts  might  be  very  feeble  and  loose, 
without  hindering  its  preservation.  However,  even  here  it 
seems  to  me  impossible  that  there  are  not  certain  incompati- 
bilities and  correlations,  which  the  theory  indicates  as  behov- 
ing to  be,  in  proportion  to  the  degree  of  complication  the 
animal  presents.  Thus  there  cannot  but  be  a  certain  relation 
between  the  organs  of  nutrition  and  those  of  motion  ;  and  this 
relation  must  be  determined  by  the  ease  with  which  the  ani- 
mal, according  to  the  medium  in  which  it  lives,  finds  its  prey. 
Thus,  even  in  the  republics  of  polyps,  there  must  be  necessary 
•correlations,  without  which  they  would  not  exist. 


III. 

LESAGE   OF   GENEVA  AND   FINAL   CAUSES. 

(Book  i.  Chaptek  n.  Page  62.) 

LESAGE,  a  celebrated  natural  philosopher  of  Geneva, 
known  by  his  Lucrece  Newtonien,  had  projected  a 
work  which  seems,  although  from  another  point  of  view, 
conceived  on  a  plan  analogous  to  that  of  Kant's  Critique  of 
the  Judgment.  It  was,  as  we  are  told  by  Prevost  of  Geneva, 
his  editor  and  friend,  a  Theory  of  the  ends  of  nature  and  art. 
He  was  to  have  called  it  Teleology ;  and  by  this  work  he 
responded  to  the  desire  of  Wolf,  who,  in  the  preface  of  his 
Logic,  had  uttered  the  wish  that  the  doctrine  of  ends  were 
handled  apart,  as  a  body  of  distinct  science.  Unhappily  this 
work  of  Lesage  has  only  come  down  to  us  in  the  form  of 
detached  fragments,  sufficiently  obscure,^  and  it  is  difficult 
for  us  to  form  a  just  idea  of  the  method  he  meant  to  follow, 
and  of  the  principal  thoughts  he  was  to  develop  in  it.  We 
shall  extract  from  these  fragments  some  of  the  ideas  that 
appear  most  interesting. 

Lesage  himself,  in  the  preface  of  his  Essai  de  Chimie 
mecanique  (pp.  92  and  93),  tells  us  how  he  had  conceived  the 
object  and  plan  of  his  treatise.  He  says  :  '  It  would  be  possi- 
ble to  give  a  theory  of  ends,  which  should  embrace  the  works 
of  art  and  those  of  nature,  and  which,  after  having  furnished 
rules  of  synthesis  for  the  composition  of  a  work  on  given  aims 
with  given  means,  should  propose  rules  of  analysis  to  discover 
the  views  of  an  agent  by  the  inspection  of  his  works.' 

According  to  this  passage  it  may  be  supposed —  1st,  That 
Lesage  had  first  to  give  the  theory  of  ends,  beginning  with 
the  consideration  of  works  of  art,  and  thence  to  pass  to  the 
works  of  nature ;  2d,  That  in  the  former  case,  knowing  the 

^  These  fraj:ments  -will  be  found,  as  well  as  the  Lxicrece  Neiotonien,  in  the 
Notice  de  la  vie  et  des  Merits  de  Lesage,  by  Pierre  Prevost  (Geneva,  1805). 

439 


440  APPENDIX. 

cause  that  acts  (namely,  the  intelligent  cause),  and  being  able 
to  observe  it  when  it  acts  in  pursuit  of  ends  and  by  deter- 
minate means,  he  would  have  derived  from  this  observation 
the  general  rules  of  an  action  directed  in  order  to  an  end,  and 
these  rules  might  be  called  rules  of  synthesis,  because  they 
would  be  derived  from  a  knowledge  of  the  cause ;  3d,  That 
from  these  rules  of  synthesis  he  must  derive  rules  of  analysis, 
which  should  admit  of  rising  from  the  effect  to  the  intelligent 
cause,  when  the  latter  is  not  given,  and  to  determine  by  the 
examination  of  a  work  the  ends  that  have  controlled  it.  He 
even  behoved,  whether  in  the  first  or  the  second  part,  not  to 
rest  satisfied  with  logical  rules,  but  to  employ  even  mathe- 
matical principles,  as  appears  from  a  sort  of  table  of  contents, 
where  this  title  occurs :  '  On  the  greatest  and  least  of  the 
mathematicians.  Or  on  the  best  and  the  least  bad  in  general. 
An  illustration  from  the  cells  of  bees.' 

The  fragments  that  remain  nearly  correspond  to  the  plan 
indicated.  They  consist  of  two  chapters,  the  one  upon  the 
synthesis^  the  other  upon  the  analysis  of  ends. 

Synthesis  of  ends. 

Definitions.  —  Lesage  defines  the  end  nearly  as  we  have 
ourselves  done  at  the  beginning  of  this  work. 

'  The  effect  of  an  intelligent  cause,  considered  in  so  far  as 
it  has  known  and  willed  it,  is  called  the  end  of  that  cause.'  ^ 

'  All  intermediate  causes  are  called  means  of  execution,  or 
simply  the  means. 

'  When  the  means  are  considered  as  ends,  that  on  which 
the  ordaining  cause  immediately  acts  is  called  the  proximate 
end ;  all  the  others,  if  there  are  any,  are  called  remote  ends; 
and  that  in  which  all  the  means  terminate  is  called  the  last 
end."" 

The  former  are  also  called  subordinate  ends  in  relation  ta 


1  Afterwards  he  defines  the  final  cause  as  '  the  motive  that  determines  an 
intelligent  being  to  will  an  end.'  I  know  not  whether  it  is  admissible  to  con- 
found the  final  cause  with  the  motive.  It  seems  that  from  the  habitual  use  of 
the  word,  the  final  cause  is  nothing  but  the  end  itself;  it  is  the  end,  consid- 
ered as  one  of  the  causes  of  the  action.  The  motive  is  an  impulsive,  and  not 
final  cause.  Accordingly  Ubags  very  well  says  :  '  Differt  finis  a  inotivo ; 
nam  motivum  causa  impulsiva  dicitur.  .  .  .  Tempus  amcenum  v.  g.  ambula- 
tionis  motivtim,  sed  non  finis  esse  potest.  Ergo  omnls  finis  motivum,  sed 
non  omn    motivum  finis  quoque  est.'  —  Ubags,  Ontologia,  chap.  iii.  §  4. 


LESAGE   OF   GENEVA  AND   FINAL  CAUSES.  441 

the  last,  wliicli  is  the  principal  eud,  and  which,  for  the  same 
reason,  alone  deserves  the  name  of  end. 

From  this  important  principle  Lesage  infers  the  following 
consequences :  — 

'  When  two  aims  conjoined  in  an  object  cross  each  other, 
the  ordaining  being  will  have  to  sacrifice  more  or  less  of  each, 
in  order  to  take  the  best  of  all  the  imj^erfect  executions  of 
each.  In  this  choice  two  motives  must  decide  him  —  the 
importance  of  each  aim  for  the  principal  end,  and  the  degree 
of  contrariety  that  is  found  between  the  execution  of  this 
subordinate  aim  and  that  of  the  other  or  others. 

'  Thus,  1st,  If  one  of  the  aims  conjoined  in  an  object  were 
much  more  important  than  the  others,  and  were  at  the  same 
time  very  contrary  to  them,  all  these  less  aims  would  gradu- 
ally disappear. 

'  2d,  If  the  different  aims  were  nearly  equally  important, 
and  nearly  equally  opposed  to  each  other,  they  would  also 
be  nearly  equally  well  executed  —  or  ill,  as  the  case  might  be. 

'  3d,  If  there  were  a  very  great  inequality  of  importance 
in  the  ends,  but  the  execution  of  the  least  did  extremely  little 
injury  to  the  execution  of  the  greatest,  these  least  would  be 
almost  perfectly  fulfilled.' 

From  this  last  rule  Lesage  concluded,  in  response  to  a 
celebrated  word  of  Diderot,  'that  there  is  no  absurdity  in 
conceiving  the  Eternal  Being  occupied  in  folding  the  wing  of 
a  beetle  or  in  proportioning  the  cell  of  a  bee.' 

To  prove  that,  when  an  agent  pursues  several  aims  at  once, 
he  makes  a  less  perfect  work  than  when  he  has  only  one, 
Lesage  cites  the  following  examples :  — 

'Nocturnal  birds  have  the  pupil  of  the  eye  very  open ; 
for  the  same  reason  they  do  not  see  so  well  by  day.  An 
alternate  dilatation  and  contraction  of  the  pupil  might  render 
the  same  eye  equally  fit  for  seeing  by  night  or  day ;  but  this 
flexibilit}^  of  the  fibres  of  the  iris  would  at  the  same  time 
render  the  organs  feebler  and  more  fragile,  and  would  injure 
the  animal  more  than  help  it.  An  intelligent  Creator  has 
thus  had  to  take  a  mean  between  an  injurious  flexibility  and 
absolute  rigidity.  ...  So  birds  are  usually  less  fit  for  walking 
in  proportion  as  they  are  adapted  for  flying. 

'  When  the  execution  of  a  project  gives  occasion  to  some 


442  APPENDIX. 

reparable  inconvenience,  of  all  the  remedies  that  may  be 
applied,  those  are  the  most  useful  that  arise  from  the  evil 
itself.  .  .  .  The  skin  which  heat  renders  dry  is  moistened  by 
the  very  glands  that  it  covers,  and  which  the  heat  opens  when 
it  renders  the  moisture  necessary.' 

Such  was  to  be  the  first  chapter  of  the  work,  containing  the 
synthesis  of  ends.  Lesage  added  this  note :  '  There  are  too 
many  scholastic  distinctions  in  this  chapter,  and  not  enough  of 
rules.  I  intend  to  double  the  latter  and  reduce  the  former.' 
Thus  it  is  evident  that  the  chief  originality  that  Lesage  pur- 
posed was  to  give  the  rules  of  a  work  composed  in  reference 
to  ends. 

In  principle,  he  would  only  have  needed  to  take  his  exam- 
ples from  facts  where  ends  are  granted  — namely,  from  human 
acts ;  but,  in  reality,  he  borrowed  them  indifferently  from  this 
sphere  and  from  that  of  nature. 

Let  us  pass  to  the  second  chapter,  which  was  to  contain 
rules  '  for  discovering  the  ends  of  a  system.' 

This  second  chapter  is  more  obscure  than  the  first,  and 
does  not  correspond  to  what  the  title  promised.  We  shall 
extract  from  it  the  following  passages :  — 

'Thus,  there  being  a  system  to  examine,  there  are  aa 
infinitude  of  hypotheses  which  may  correspond  to  it  more  or 
less  perfectly  ;  but  they  all  occur  between  these  two  extremes 

—  1st,  The  system  in  question  has  no  other  arrangement  than 
it  has  received  from  chance,  or,  what  is  the  same  thing,  there 
are  no  ends ;  2d,  This  system  is  in  all  its  parts,  and  in  all 
respects,  the  work  of  an  intelligent  cause. 

'  The  hypothesis  that  attributes  a  system  to  chance  may  be 
confirmed  or  overthrown  by  comparing  the  known  laws  that 
chance  follows  with  the  usages  of  the  proposed  system.^ 

'  The  supposition  of  an  intelligent  cause  which  fulfils  its 
ends  with  all  possible  precision  is  not  a  complete  hypothesis 

—  some  end  in  particular  must  still  be  attributed  to  it ;  but, 
in  order  not  to  do  it  by  chance,  it  will  be  well  to  make  the 
following  observations :  — 

'  1.  The  end  of  the  author  of  a  work  is  one  of  the  effects 
of  that  work. 

1  This  is  nearly  the  fundamental  idea  which  we  have  ourselves  endeavoured 
to  dev^,lop  in  this  treatise. 


LESAGE  OF  GENEVA  AND  FINAL  CAUSES.  443 

'  2.  All  the  parts  of  the  work  must  tend  to  the  execution 
of  the  most  perfect  end,  whether  as  a  direct  means  or  as  a 
remedy  for  obstacles ;  or  else,  if  there  are  parts  and  effects  of 
this  work  which  do  not  directly  tend  to  the  end,  these  parts 
and  effects  are  necessary  and  inseparable  accompaniments  of 
the  most  perfect  execution  of  the  end. 

'  3.  When  in  a  work  a  part  is  observed  that  has  no  effect 
but  to  stop  'a  certain  movement,  this  movement  must  also  be 
contrary  to  the  end. 

'  4.  One  should  avoid  attributing  an  end  to  a  very  intelli- 
gent being,  when  the  execution  of  that  end  is  produced  by 
very  complicated  means,  while  simpler  ones  are  known  that 
would  have  produced  the  same  effect.  And  if  one  hesitated 
between  two  ends,  it  would  be  necessary,  other  things  being 
equal,  to  attribute  to  him  that  which  appeared  to  be  accom- 
plished by  the  simplest  means. 

'  5.  When  uniformity  among  several  beings  is  perceived,  it 
should  be  supposed  that  they  are  made  for  the  same  end  if 
they  are  perfectly  similar,  or  for  ends  nearly  alike  if  they 
only  nearly  resemble  each  other. 

'  6.  In  general,  when  we  perceive  observed  in  a  work  the 
rules  that  intelligent  beings  follow  in  their  operations  (Chap. 
I.),  it  must  be  supposed  that  these  rules  have  effectually  given 
rise  to  the  phenomena,  which  leads  to  the  supposition  of  an 
end,  the  end  of  the  author's  system. 

'  When  we  have  once  fixed  on  an  effect,  and  inquire  whether 
it  is  effectually  the  universal  end,  we  must  not  abandon  our 
hypothesis  even  if  we  find  effects  or  parts  that,  considered 
by  themselves,  appear  not  to  be  entirely  conformed  to  the 
universal  end ;  for  we  have  seen  (§§3  and  4)  that  a  universal 
end  may  be  subdivided  into  several  partial  ends  that  may 
cross  each  other.' 

Following  these  two  chapters  there  is  a  third  fragment, 
entitled,  '  Concerning  Variety,^  and  which  is  not  very  dis- 
tinctly connected  with  the  preceding.  We  shall  extract  from 
it  some  laws  interesting  from  the  point  of  view  of  finality, 
which  the  author  had  himself  extracted  from  a  much  more 
complete  work,  of  which  he  tells  us  'the  deciphering  had 
become  impossible  to  him.' 

'  1.  The  quantity  of  breath  in  a  given  time,  other  things 


444  APPENDIX. 

being  equal,  is  in  proportion  to  the  surfaces,  while  the  quan- 
tity of  moisture  thus  furnished  is  in  proportion  to  the  volume 
of  the  animal.  But  as  we  descend  to  the  smallest  animals, 
the  surface  decreases  in  a  less  proportion  than  the  volume. 
Thus  the  perspiration  of  small  animals  would  be  too  great, 
relative  to  the  mass  of  their  humours,  if  their  skin  were  as 
porous  as  that  of  the  large  animals.  Heuce  it  was  suitable 
that  the  skin  of  insects  should  be  a  kind  of  shell,  as  is  the 
case. 

'  2.  The  force  with  which  a  fruit  tends  to  detach  itself 
from  its  stalk  is  in  proportion  to  its  weight  or  its  inertia,  — 
that  is,  in  both  cases,  to  the  cube  of  its  dimensions, — while 
the  resistance  opposing  it  is  in  proportion  to  the  transverse 
section  of  the  stalk,  —  that  is,  merely  to  the  square  of  the 
dimensions.  Thus  it  was  necessary  that  great  fruits  should 
have  stalks  still  greater  than  if  they  were  exactly  like  the 
small.  We  also  see  that  high  plants  either  do  not  bear  large 
fruits  (according  to  La  Fontaine's  remark  in  his  Mathieu 
Craro")^  or  bear  them  fastened  to  the  trunk  and  the  chief 
branches,  as  is  the  case  in  some  Indian  trees. 

'  3.  That  the  weight  of  herbivorous  quadrupeds  be  propor- 
tioned to  the  resistance  of  their  neck,  it  was  necessary  that 
those  with  the  largest  heads,  like  the  ox,  should  have  a  still 
larger  neck  than  in  proportion  to  the  corresponding  dimen- 
sions ;  or  else  that,  like  the  camel,  they  should  have  a  smaller 
head  than  others,  in  proportion  to  the  trunk,  the  neck  usually 
vertical,  and  be  able  to  sit  gently  down  to  take  their  food  on 
the  earth  or  ruminate  it ;  or,  in  fine,  that  if  too  large  for  these 
expedients  sufficing  without  inconvenience,  as  in  the  case  of 
the  elephant,  they  should  have  almost  no  neck,  but  a  member 
fit  for  seizing  their  food  in  mass,  for  sucking  up  their  drink, 
and  conveying  both  into  the  mouth.  And  all  this  is  found 
realized  in  nature.' 

We  know  not  whether  these  relations,  or  others  like  them, 
are  generally  verifiable  in  zoology  ;  we  quote  them  as  exam- 
ples of  an  attempt  to  reduce  to  scientific  principles  the  theory 
of  finality. 

The  extracts  we  have  just  cited  suffice  to  give  us  some  idea 
of  what  the  Teleology  of  Lesage  would  have  been  if  he  had 
had  time  to  execute  it.     It  would  have  been,  evidently,  a 


LESAGE   OF  GENEVA  AND   FINAL  CAUSES.  445 

book  of  quite  a  different  nature  from  the  treatises  of  physical 
teleology  so  numerous  in  the  18th  century.  It  would  have 
stated  general  principles,  rules,  theorems,  instead  of  confining 
itself  to  the  enumeration  of  examples.  However,  according 
to  the  fragments  that  remain  to  us,  it  seems  the  author  rather 
proposed  to  furnish  us  with  rules  to  determine  the  ends  of 
nature  than  to  give  the  proof  that  there  are  ends,  and  the 
precise  criterion  of  their  existence.  His  work  would  rather 
have  been  a  theory  of  ends  than  a  critique  of  finality.  It 
was  not  yet  the  work  of  Kant,  but  it  would  have  been  more 
than  the  works  of  Derham  and  Paley. 


IV. 


GEOFFKOY    ST.    HILAIRE    AND    THE    DOCTRINE 
OF   FINAL   CAUSES. 

(Book  i.  Chapter  iv.  Page  123.) 

ANATOMY,  equally  with  physiology,  has  protested  against 
the  exaggerated  use  of  the  principle  of  final  causes. 
G.  St.  Hilaire  severely  condemned  this,  which  he  called  the 
Aristotelian  method,  exclusively  confined,  according  to  him, 
to  the  consideration  of  the  forms  and  uses  of  organs.^  He 
accuses  this  method  of  not  having  perceived  the  profound 
analogies  of  organs  hidden  under  innumerable  differences  of 
form  and  structure,  or  at  least  only  to  have  seized  such  of  the 
analogies  as  strike  the  eyes  of  the  vulgar,  and  of  furnishing 
no  scientific  method  for  disengaging  the  hidden  relations. 
He  says,  'It  stops  at  the  very  moment  when  it  should  be 
didactic,  when  it  would  need  to  become  an  Ariadne's  thread 
to  discover  more  hidden  relations.  .  .  .  This  method  con- 
sists,' he  says  again,  '  in  following,  step  by  step,  what  it  calls 
the  degradation  of  forms,  beginning  with  man,  whom  it  would 
consider  the  most  perfect  creature.  At  every  moment  of  its 
researches  it  is  upon  an  almost  similar^  whence  it  descends  to 
each  comprehensible  difference.  The  orang-outang's  hand  is 
nearly  that  of  man,  but  differs  from  it  by  a  shorter  thumb 
and  longer  fingers.  .  .  .  Thence  we  pass  to  the  hand  of  the 
ateles,  defective  in  a  very  different  way,  for  in  one  of  the 
species  of  this  genus  there  is  no  thumb  at  all.  Passing  to 
other  monkeys,  the  five  fingers  are  still  seen,  — the  ver^  nearly 
still  continues  ;  but  the  moment  we  examine  the  differences, 
we  perceive  it  is  no  more  a  hand.  .  .  .  Proceeding  to  the 

1  Geoffrey  St.  Hilaire,  Philosophie  zcologique, '  Preliminary  Discourse.'  We 
are  obliged  in  quoting  this  illustrious  naturalist,  to  respect  the  detestable  style 
in  which  he  has  expressed  his  great  and  profound  thoughts. 

446 


G.  ST.   IIILAIKE   AND   THE   DOCTRINE   OF   FINAL  CAUSES.     447 

bear,  tlieir  paw  is  still  very  near  the  monkey's  hand,  .  .  . 
but  the  differences  here  are  more  pronounced.  I  pass  over 
several  and  come  to  the  otter.  Here  a  new  circumstance  is 
found;  the  fingers  of  this  mammifer  are  united  by  large 
membranes.  This  nearly  the  same  thing  has  thus  strangely 
changed  its  form ;  and  as  it  gives  the  animal  powerful  means 
of  natation,  the}'  are  called  fins.  The  method  does  not  go 
farther :  it  ends  with  the  unguicular  mammifers.' 

On  this  Aristotelian  method,  which  G.  St.  Hilaire  accuses 
Cuvier  of  having  slavish]}'  adopted,  he  makes  two  criticisms: 
1st,  It  is,  according  to  him,  neither  logical  nor  philosophical. 
'At  every  moment  one  is  forced  to  appeal  to  a  half- 
resemblance,  a  presentiment  of  relations  not  scientifically 
justified.  A  vague  idea  of  analogy  is  the  link  by  which 
these  observations  of  different  cases  are  connected.  Is  it 
logical  to  conclude  from  resemblance  to  difference,  without 
having  previously  explained  what  should  be  understood  by 
the  nearly  similar  ?  2d,  This  method  is  insufiicient.  You 
have  stopped  at  the  cloven-footed  mammifers  ;  and  it  would 
be  necessary  to  come  to  the  feet  of  ruminants  and  of  horses. 
But  there  the  differences  appear  to  you  too  considerable.  .  .  . 
The  method  remains  silent.  It  was  a  guiding  clue ;  it  is 
broken  ;  we  change  the  system.' 

Accordingly  it  would  be  wrong,  thinks  the  same  naturalist, 
to  regard  Aristotle  as  the  founder  of  comparative  anatomy ; 
he  had  the  presentiment  of  it,  but  had  not  its  method.  To 
make  an  exact  science  of  comparative  anatomy,  there  is 
needed  a  philosophical  and  strict  principle,  that  permits  to 
seize  with  certainty  not  almost  resemblances,  but  evident  and 
strictly  demonstrable  analogies.  This  principle,  discovered 
by  G.  St.  Hilaire,  and  which  has  remained  in  science,  is  what 
he  calls  the  law  of  connections.  We  have  already  seen  that 
G.  Cuvier  also  himself  discovered  a  great  law,  the  law  of  cor- 
relations. It  may  be  said  that  these  two  laws  together  con- 
tain the  whole  zoological  philosophy  of  these  two  eminent 
naturalists. 

We  already  know  Cuvier's  law.  It  rests  on  this  simple 
and  evident  idea,  that,  in  an  organized  being,  all  the  parts 
must  harmonize  together  to  accomplish  a  common  action. 
The  law  of  connections,  again,  rests  on  the  fact  that  an  organ 


448  APPENDIX. 

is  always  in  a  constant  relation  of  position  with  any  other 
given  organ,  which,  in  its  turn,  is  in  a  constant  relation  of 
position  with  another;  so  that  the  position  may  suffice  for 
the  recognition  of  the  organ  under  whatever  form  it  occurs. 
Let  us  notice  the  difference  between  connections  and  correla- 
tions. Correlation  is  a  relation  of  action,  co-operation,  finality. 
Connection  is  an  entirely  physical,  mechanical  relation  of 
position,  of  dovetailing  in  some  sort.  In  a  machine,  the 
remotest  parts  may  be  in  correlation  :  those  only  that  are 
near  and  fit  together  are  in  connection,  at  least  according 
to  the  language  of  G.  St.  Hilaire.  But  connections  appear  to 
this  great  anatomist  much  more  interesting  than  correlations. 
If  you  neglect  the  physical  bond  that  attaches,  according  to 
a  fixed  law,  one  organ  to  another,  you  will  let  yourself  be 
deceived  by  appearances.  You  will  attach  an  exaggerated 
importance  to  the  forms  of  organs  and  their  uses ;  and  those 
differences,  so  striking  to  superficial  eyes,  will  hide  from  you 
the  very  essence  of  the  organ.  Analogies  will  disappear 
under  differences.  There  will  be  seen  as  many  distinct  types 
as  accidental  forms.  The  unity  of  the  abstract  animal,  that  is 
hidden  under  the  diversity  of  organic  forms,  will  vanish.  If, 
on  the  other  hand,  you  fix  the  idea  of  an  organ  by  its  precise 
and  certain  connections  with  the  adjacent  organs,  you  are 
sure  not  to  lose  sight  of  it,  whatever  forms  it  may  affect. 
You  have  a  clue  that  enables  you  to  recognise  the  type  under 
all  its  modifications,  and  in  this  way  you  will  attain  to  the 
true  animal  philosophy. 

We  may  give  an  idea  of  G.  St.  Hilaire's  method  by  a 
very  simple  example  furnished  by  himself.  It  is  necessary, 
he  says,  to  set  out  from  a  determinate  subject,  —  that  is  to  say, 
from  a  precise  piece  always  recognisable.  This  piece  may  be, 
for  example,  the  terminal  portion  of  the  anterior  extremity. 
That  extremity,  in  all  the  vertebrate  animals,  is  composed  of 
four  parts,  —  the  shoulder,  the  arm,  the  fore-arm,  and  a  last 
section,  capable  of  assuming  very  diverse  forms  (hand,  claw, 
wing),  but  which,  under  all  these  secondary  modifications, 
has  always  the  common  essence  of  being  the  fourth  section  of 
the  anterior  member.  Where  the  third  ends  the  fourth  begins. 
This  is  a  fixed  datum  that  determines  the  organ  ;  its  use,  on 
the  other  hand,  only  determines  it  in  a  superficial  and  quite 


G.   ST.    HILAIRE   AND   THE   DOCTRINE   OF   FINAL   CAUSES.      44V< 

vulgar  manner.  What  more  different  than  a  hand,  a  wing, 
and  a  fin,  in  the  eyes  of  the  vulgar?  For  the  anatomist  they 
are  one  and  the  same  thing.  This  the  school  of  Geoffrey 
calls  the  anatomical  element.  But  in  following  this  method, 
in  ascending  from  organ  to  organ,  from  connection  to  connec- 
tion, observation  reveals  this  law  to  us  :  '  An  organ  may  be 
annihilated,  atrophied,  never  transposed,'  which  is  called  the 
law  of  connections. 

The  following  are,  according  to  G.  St.  Hilaire,  the  advan- 
tages of  the  new  method  compared  with  the  old  :  — '  1st,  It  is 
not  a  disguised  repetition  of  old  ideas  on  the  analogies  of 
organization.  For  the  theory  of  analogues  from  the  outset 
declines  the  consideration  of  form  and  functions.  2d,  Not 
only  does  it  extend  the  old  bases  of  zoology,  but  overthrows 
them  by  its  recommendation  to  keep  to  a  single  element  of 
consideration  as  the  first  subject  of  study.  3d,  It  recognises 
other  principles,  because,  in  its  view,  not  the  organs  in  their 
totality  are  analogous,  which  is  always  the  case  in  animals 
nearly  similar,  but  the  materials  of  which  the  organs  are 
composed.  4th,  Its  precise  aim  is  different ;  for  it  requires 
a  mathematical  strictness  in  the  determination  of  every  kind 
of  material  by  itself.  5th.  It  becomes  an  instrument  of  dis- 
covery (example,  the  hyoid  bone).  6th,  In  fine,  the  theory 
of  analogues,  to  be  always  equally  comparative,  confines  it- 
self in  this  case  to  the  observation  of  a  single  order  of  facts.' 

Has  the  law  of  connections  the  range  that  G.  St.  Hilaire 
attributed  to  it?  Can  it  lead  to  all  the  consequences  that  he 
has  deduced  from  it?  We  will  not  venture  to  determine. 
But  without  prejudice  to  the  range  of  the  law,  it  is  incon- 
testable that  there  is  in  it  a  profound  idea,  and  which  must 
certainly  have  led  to  the  perception  of  relations  and  analogies 
that  the  school  of  Cuvier,  not  directing  their  attention  to  that 
quarter,  may  have  failed  to  recognise.  The  consideration  of 
functions  —  so  rigidly  excluded  by  G.  St.  Hilaire,  so  highly 
recommended  by  Cuvier  —  evidently  behoved  to  turn  away 
the  latter  and  his  disciples  from  the  consideration  of  the  ana- 
tomical elements,  analogous  by  situation  and  relation,  pro- 
foundly different  in  structure  and  function.  It  must  either 
be  believed  that  principles  do  not  involve  their  consequences, 
or  it  must  be  presumed  that  Cuvier  and  his  disciples  ought 


450  APPENDIX. 

especially  to  direct  their  attention  to  the  differences  of  ani- 
mals and  ignore  the  analogies;  while  the  school  of  Geoffroy, 
guided  by  the  master's  principles,  must  have  been  particu- 
larly struck  by  these  analogies,  and  consequently  have  ex- 
tended the  synthetic  knowledge  of  the  animal  kingdom. 

But  now,  does  this  mean  that  Cuvier's  method  was,  as 
G.  St.  Hilaire  alleged,  unphilosophical,  superficial,  obedient 
to  vulgar  prejudices,  and,  in  fine,  unfruitful?  These  are 
unjust  accusations.  How  can  a  method  be  accused  of  ster- 
ility that  has  given  birth  to  palaeontology  ?  Attempt  by  the 
principle  of  connections  to  reconstruct  the  fossil  world,  and 
you  will  not  succeed.  In  effect,  given  an  anterior  member 
wanting  the  fourth  section,  how  can  we  divine,  from  the  sole 
fact  of  the  connection,  the  form  this  fourth  section  must  have 
taken,  and  thereby  the  form  of  all  the  organs  awanting  ? 
The  law  of  connections  serves  to  find  the  unity  in  a  given 
variety,  which  is  doubtless  a  great  philosophical  object ;  but 
it  does  not  serve  to  find  variety  by  unity.  In  the  most  varied 
and  complex  forms  it  can  disengage  the  anatomical  element. 
But  given  this  element,  it  cannot  reconstruct  these  varied 
and  complex  forms,  which  are  animality  itself.  In  a  word, 
in  the  law  of  connections,  and  in  G.  St.  Hilaire's  method  in 
general,  which  is  usually  considered  as  synthetical,  I  would 
prefer  to  see  a  method  of  analysis,  and  in  that  of  Cuvier, 
which  passes  for  analytic,  a  method  of  synthesis.  The  for- 
mer will  reduce  abstract  organization  to  its  elements ;  the 
latter  will  reconstruct  organizations  by  means  of  their  ele- 
ments. The  former  is  like  a  chemist,  who  should  show  you 
the  identity  of  the  elements  composing  coal  and  the  diamond, 
which  is  an  analysis ;  the  other  is  like  a  chemist  who,  with 
given  elements,  reconstructs  organic  substances  that  had  so 
long  escaped  synthesis.  The  prominent  character  of  synthe- 
sis is  reconstruction.  But  that  is  what  least  admits  of  dis- 
pute in  Cuvier's  zoological  philosophy. 

If  we  compare,  in  yet  another  point  of  view,  the  law  of 
correlations  and  the  law  of  connections,  it  will  appear  that 
the  first  gives  us  unity  and  harmony  in  the  animal  itself,  the 
second  unity  and  harmony  in  the  animal  series.  Given  an 
organized  being,  you  can  consider  it  in  itself,  or  in  the  series 
of  which  it  forms  part.     In  itself,  you  find  that  all  the  pieces 


G.  ST.  IIILAIRE   AND   THE  DOCTRINE   OF  FINAL  CAUSES.      451 

composing  it  are  bound  together  by  a  final  aim,  which  is 
its  unity,  its  form,  its  essence.  This  is  what  Cuvier's  law 
expresses.  Compared,  again,  with  other  beings  of  the  series, 
it  shows  constant  relations  under  the  most  diverse  forms ;  it 
expresses  in  its  way  one  and  the  same  type  with  all  those  of 
the  same  series.  This  is  what  G.  St.  Hilaire's  law  expresses. 
The  first  gives  us  a  profound  and  philosophical  idea  of  the 
organization  in  itself,  the  second  gives  us  a  philosophical 
idea  of  the  animal  scale,  of  the  organized  series.  Why  sac- 
rifice one  of  these  two  ideas  to  the  other?  That  of  Cuvier 
is  not  less  philosophical  than  that  of  G.  St.  Hilaire,  but  it  is 
so  at  another  point  of  view.  The  latter  was  wrong,  then,  in 
accusing  his  rival  of  using  a  method  more  superficial  than 
philosophical.  But  it  must  be  owned  that  Cuvier  was  equally 
wrong  himself;  for  he  accused  G.  St.  Hilaire  of  taking 
abstractions  for  realities,  vague  resemblances  for  certain 
analogies.  Doubtless,  said  he,  there  is  something  common 
between  all  animals,  and  this  general  analogy  had  struck  the 
vulgar  long  before  the  savants,  since  they  have  combined 
them  under  the  common  name  animal;  but  from  this  to 
a  precise  and  determinate  unity  of  type  there  is  an  abj'ss 
that  only  hypothesis  and  imagination  can  overleap.  These 
observations  might  be  justified  by  the  abuse  that  Geoffrey 
and  his  school  made  of  the  principle  of  analogy ;  but  they 
did  not  apply  to  the  law  of  connections,  taken  by  itself. 
For,  on  the  contrary,  that  law  (the  range  and  limits  of  which 
we  are  not  to  measure)  furnished  a  certain  and  precise 
principle  of  comparison;  for  the  superficial  analogies  per- 
ceived by  the  vulgar,  it  substituted  rational  and  more  pro- 
found analogies. 

Finally,  in  order  duly  to  judge  the  doctrine  of  unity  of 
type  and  composition,  it  would  have  to  be  considered,  not 
merely  as  G.  St.  Hilaire  expounded  it,  —  a  single  man  being 
unable  to  derive  from  an  idea  all  that  it  contains,  —  but  as  it 
has  emerged  from  the  labours  of  a  great  number  of  natural- 
ists, his  contemporaries  or  successors,  Goethe,  Oken,  Carus, 
Candoile,  etc.  But  from  all  these  multiplied  labours,  into  the 
particular  examination  of  which  it  does  not  belong  to  us  to 
enter,  it  results  that  an  organ  may  not  only  be  modified  and 
take  the  most  diverse  forms  in  the  different  animals  and 


452  APPENDIX. 

plants  (by  atrophies,  abortions,  changes  of  dimension,  unions, 
separations,  etc.),  bnt,  besides  that,  in  the  organized  being 
itself  the  different  organs  are  again  but  the  same  organ 
modified.  Goethe  has  shown  this  in  his  treatise  on  the  Meta- 
morphosis of  Plants.  In  his  view,  all  the  organs  of  the  plant 
are  only  the  leaf  transformed;  and  this  view  has  been  adopted 
by  most  naturalists.  So  in  the  animal  organization,  he  was 
the  first  to  recognise  the  analogy  of  the  skull  with  the  verte- 
bral column,  an  idea  now  generally  adopted,  and  the  demon- 
stration of  which  belongs  to  the  naturalist  Oken.  This  way 
has  been  followed  out ;  and  the  decided  partisans  of  this  bold 
method  have  tried  to  reduce  to  the  vertebrate  principle  even 
the  breast-bones,  and  some  of  them  even  the  members.  In 
fine,  the  osseous  system  itself  has  appeared  a  modification  of 
the  muscular  system.  Following  all  these  ways,  the  school 
of  unity  reaches  this  double  conception :  1st,  A  universal 
vegetable  tyj^e,  reducible  to  a  branch  bearing  leaves ;  2d,  A 
universal  animal  type,  reducible  to  a  digestive  cavity  sur- 
rounded by  a  muscular  sac  provided  with  appendages.  Fi- 
nally, a  still  bolder  school,  carrying  abstraction  farther,  would 
reduce  the  elementary  idea  of  the  organization  to  the  cell, 
and  would  only  see  in  the  vegetable  or  animal  two  different 
systems  of  agglomeration  of  globules.^ 

Doubtless,  if  we  believe  the  objections  of  Cuvier  and  his 
school,  it  is  possible  that  the  doctrine  of  unity  of  type  may 
have  been  exaggerated ;  but  leaving  this  point  to  naturalists 
to  debate,  and  taking  the  idea  of  the  organization  as  it  is 
given  us  by  the  school  of  G.  St.  Hilaire,  let  us  see  whether 
it  contradicts  the  idea  that  Cuvier  has  given  us  of  it.  In 
no  manner.  For  even  if  it  were  true  that  nature  only  em- 
ploys a  very  few  materials,  or  even  a  single  element  end- 
lessly modified,  to  produce  all  organized  beings,  still  all  these 
modifications  must  produce  in  each  living  being  forms  and 
organs  compatible  with  each  other,  and  harmoniously  con- 
nected. Whether  the  skull  be  a  vertebra  or  not,  it  is  no  less 
true  that  the  vertebra  only  takes  this  remarkable  form  when 
it  has  to  contain  a  brain.     Thus  there  is  always  a  harmony 

1  See  on  this  doctrine  and  its  recent  developments  the  work  of  M.  Martins, 
De  Vunit€ ovqaniqne  des  animmix  et  des  v^(j6taux{Rev.  dcs  Deux  Mondcs,  June  15^ 
1862). 


G.   ST.   IlILAIKE   AND   THE   DOCl'lllNE    OF   FINAL   CAUSES.        453 

between  the  skull  and  the  braiu.  Thus  it  will  always  be 
admissible  to  remark,  that  where  the  spinal  marrow  expands 
under  the  form  of  the  encephalon,  the  vertebral  column  is 
developed  under  the  form  of  the  skull.  I  go  farther;  without 
these  harmonious  relations,  the  transformations,  repetitions, 
symmetries,  connections,  and  analogies  are  nothing  but  purely 
material,  anatomical  facts,  that  tell  the  mind  nothing.  By 
omitting  or  setting  aside  the  idea  of  function,  the  school 
of  G.  St.  Hilaire  would  sacrifice  physiology  to  anatomy,  and 
would  suppress  in  some  sort  the  idea  of  the  living  being,  in 
order  to  see  only  the  number  and  arrangement  of  the  parts 
—  the  material  of  life  in  place  of  life  itself ;  for  what  is  life, 
if  it  be  not  function  and  the  co-ordination  of  functions? 

To  sum  up :  Cuvier's  idea  and  that  of  G.  St.  Hilaire  are 
in  no  way  irreconcilable  ;  and  Goethe  could  profoundly  say : 
'  The  naturalists  that  are  followers  of  Cuvier  and  of  Geoffroy 
seem  to  me  to  be  soldiers  digging  mines  and  counter-mines ; 
the  one  party  dig  from  without  inwnrds,  the  others  from 
within  outwards.  If  they  are  clever,  they  must  meet  in  the 
depths.'  1 

As  regards  final  causes,  the  theory  of  G.  St.  Hilaire  is 
no  more  against  them  than  that  of  Cuvier ;  only  the  one 
attaches  itself  to  what  we  have  called  the  finality  of  plan,  the 
other  to  the  finality  of  use.^  Unity  of  plan  is  as  conformable 
to  the  idea  of  a  primordial  wisdom  as  utility  of  organs ;  and 
it  is  no  easier  for  a  blind  nature  to  make  a  well-designed 
animal  than  to  make  adapted  machines. 

1  Scientific  Works  of  Goethe  by  Ernest  Faivre  (Paris,  8vo,  1812),  p.  371. 
M.  Faivre  likewise  shows  by  examples  how  the  two  principles  may  be  reconciled 

2  See  above.  Book  i. 


V. 


FINAL  CAUSES  AND  THE  POSITIVIST  OBJECTION. 


WE  say  in  the  text:  ''Final  causes  are  not  miracles.''  Yet 
the  principal  objection  of  Positivism  to  final  causes  is 
that  they  suppose  supernatural  interventions.  This  hypothe- 
-sis  would  then  be  incompatible  with  the  law  of  modern  science, 
which  confines  itself  to  the  search  of  second  causes,  without 
making  appeal  to  the  first  cause.  '  It  is,'  says  M.  Littr^,  '  to 
marks  of  design  that  reference  is  made  in  order  to  arrive  at 
the  first  cause  ;  but  marks  of  design,  perpetually  renewed  in 
the  structure  of  the  worlds,  in  the  motion  of  the  stars,  in  the 
■adaptation  of  our  planet,  in  the  organization  of  living  beings, 
—  such  marks  of  design,  I  say,  what  else  are  they  than  marks 
of  incessant  intervention  of  the  first  cause  ?  Consequently, 
the  principle  of  the  Positivist  philosophy  is  broken  with,  which 
Tepels  interventions  and  only  accepts  laws.'  ^ 

Mr.  Stuart  Mill,  however,  who  is  quite  as  much  entitled  as 
M.  Littre  to  speak  in  the  name  of  the  Positivist  philosophy, 
for  his  part  thinks,  on  the  contrary,  that  there  is  no  contra- 
-diction  between  the  Positive  method  and  final  causes.  Let 
us  here  set  forth,  although  somewhat  at  length,  his  valuable 
testimony  upon  this  question. 

'It  is  proper,'  says  Mill,  'to  begin  by  relieving  the  doctrine 
from  a  religious  prejudice.  The  doctrine  condemns  all  theo- 
logical explanations,  and  replaces  them,  or  thinks  them  destined 
to  be  replaced,  by  theories  which  take  no  account  of  anything 
but  an  ascertained  order  of  phenomena.  It  is  inferred  that, 
if  this  change  were  completely  accomplished,  mankind  would 
cease  to  refer  the  constitution  of  nature  to  an  intelligent  will, 
or  to  believe  at  all  in  a  Creator  and  supreme  Governor  of  the 
world.  This  supposition  is  the  more  natural,  as  M.  Comte 
was  avowedly  of  that  opinion.    He  indeed  disclaimed  dogmatic 


1  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  15th  August  1866. 


454 


FINAL  CAUSES  AND   THE   POSITIVIST  OBJECTION.  455 

atheism  Avith  some  acrimoiiy,  and  even  says  (in  a  later  work, 
but  the  earliest  contains  nothing  at  variance  with  it)  that  the 
hypothesis  of  design  has  more  probability  than  that  of  a  blind 
mechanism ;  but  conjecture,  founded  on  analogy,  did  not 
seem  to  him  in  a  mature  state  of  the  human  intelligence  a 
sufficient  basis  to  rest  a  theory  on.  He  regarded  all  real 
knowledge  of  a  commencement  as  inaccessible  to  us,  and  the 
inquiry  into  it  an  over-passing  of  the  essential  limits  of  our 
mental  faculties  ;  but  those  who  accept  the  theory  of  progres- 
sive stages  of  opinion  are  not  obliged  to  follow  it  so  far.  The 
Positive  mode  of  thinking  is  not  necessarily  a  negation  of  the 
supernatural ;  it  merely  throws  back  that  question  to  the 
origin  of  all  things.  If  the  universe  had  a  beginning,  that 
beginning,  by  the  very  conditions  of  the  case,  was  super- 
natural ;  the  laws  of  nature  cannot  account  for  their  own 
origin.  The  Positive  philosopher  is  free  to  form  his  opinion 
on  this  subject  conformably  to  the  weight  he  attaches  to  the 
said  marks  of  design.  The  value  of  these  marks  is  indeed  a 
question  for  the  Positive  philosophy,  but  it  is  not  cue  on 
which  Positive  philosophers  are  necessarily  agreed.  It  is  one 
of  M.  Comte's  mistakes,  that  he  never  allows  of  open  questions. 
The  Positive  philosophy  maintains,  that  within  the  limits  of 
the  existing  order  of  the  universe,  or  rather  of  the  part  which 
is  known  to  us,  the  cause  directly  determinative  of  each 
phenomenon  is  natural,  not  supernatural.  It  is  compatible 
with  this  principle  to  believe  that  the  universe  was  created, 
and  even  that  it  is  continually  governed,  by  an  Intelligence, 
provided  we  admit  that  the  intelligent  Governor  adheres  to 
fixed  laws,  which  are  only  modified  or  counteracted  by  other 
laws  of  like  operation,  and  which  are  never  superseded  in 
a  capricious  or  providential  manner.  Whoever  regards  all 
events  as  parts  of  a  constant  order,  each  of  these  events  being 
the  invariable  consequent  of  some  antecedent  condition  or 
combination  of  conditions,  fully  accepts  the  Positive  mode  of 
thinking,  whether  or  not  he  recognise  a  universal  antecedent, 
whereof  the  whole  system  of  nature  was  originally  the  conse- 
quent, and  whether  that  universal  antecedent  be  conceived  as 
an  intelligence  or  not.'  ^ 

1  Stuart  Mill,  Aiiguste  Comte  and  Positivism,  pp.  13-15.    Let  us  further  quote, 
in  the  same  connection,  the  interesting  testimony  of  Cabanis,  Lettre  sur  les 


456  APPENDIX. 

On  this  question  we  are  entirely  of  Mr.  Mill's  opinion. 
The  doctrine  of  final  causes  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  doc- 
trine of  supernatural  interventions,  in  other  words,  with  the 
doctrine  of  miracles.  We  have  already  several  times  indi- 
cated this  point  of  view.  This  is  the  place  to  insist  upon  it, 
and  to  have  done  with  this  difficulty, 

M.  Littr^  here  affirms,  without  demonstrating,  what  is  just 
the  question,  namely,  that  the  doctrine  of  finality  demands 
an  incessant  intervention  of  the  Creator  in  the  series  of  natural 
phenomena.  This  is  not  at  all  evident,  and  it  is  even  evident 
to  us  that  there  is  no  necessary  connection  between  these  two 
things.  To  be  convinced  of  this,  it  is  enough  to  observe  one 
of  the  facts  where  finality  is  indisputable,  namely,  one  of  the 
combinations  created  by  human  industry.  It  will  be  seen 
that  intelligence  only  intervenes  at  the  beginning,  and  that 
the  chain  of  phenomena  then  unrolls,  according  to  physical 
laws,  without  any  new  intervention  of  the  directing  agent. 
If,  for  instance,  — to  take  a  very  simple  example,  —  I  kindle  a 


causes  premieres,  p.  41:  'It  suffices  to  cast  the  most  superficial  glance  on  the 
organization  of  vegetables  and  animals,  on  the  manner  of  their  reproduction, 
development,  and  fulfilment,  according  to  the  spirit  of  this  very  organization, 
of  the  part  assigned  to  them  in  the  series  of  beings.  The  mind  of  man  is  not 
made  to  understand  that  all  that  takes  place  without  foresight  and  end,  with- 
out intelligence  and  will.  No  analogy,  no  probability,  can  conduct  him  to 
such  a  result ;  all,  on  the  contrary,  incline  him  to  regard  the  works  of  nature 
as  operations  comparable  to  those  of  his  own  mind,  in  the  production  of  works 
most  skilfully  combined,  which  only  differ  from  them  by  a  degree  of  perfec- 
tion a  thousandfold  greater  ;  whence  arises  for  him  the  idea  of  a  wisdom  that 
has  conceived  and  a  will  that  has  executed  them,  — but  a  wisdom  the  highest, 
and  a  will  most  attentive  to  all  details,  exercising  the  most  extensive  power 
with  the  most  minute  precision. 

'  It  is  not  that  we  must  always  in  researches  on  nature,  or  in  philosophical 
discussions  to  which  they  give  rise,  adopt  the  vain  and  sterile  explanations  of 
final  causes  ;  nothing,  doubtless,  is  more  fitted  to  quench  and  mislead  the  genius 
of  discovery,  nothing  more  inevitably  leads  us  to  chimerical  results,  often  as 
ridiculous  as  erroneous.  But  what  is  true  in  all  researches,  and  in  all  discus- 
sions of  detail,  is  so  no  longer  when  one  is  at  the  end  of  them,  where  we  have 
by  hypothesis  supposed  man  to  be  ;  and  when  we  reason  on  causes,  or,  if  you 
will,  on  first  causes,  all  these  rules  of  probability  force  us  to  recognise  them  as 
final.  Such,  at  least,  is  our  mind's  method  of  conceiving  and  proceeding  ;  and 
its  conclusions  can  only  be  opposed  by  su])tle  arguments,  which,  by  that  very 
fact,  hardly  seem  that  they  can  have  been  founded  in  reason,  or  by  learned 
systems  in  which  there  always  remain  great  gaps.  But,  certitude  being  by  no 
means  to  be  found  in  this  last,  the  more  one  will  take  the  trouble  to  examine  the 
motives  enounced  by  those  that  adopt  it,  the  more,  it  seems  to  me,  we  will  find 
ourselves  invincibly  driven,  as  it  were,  towards  the  first,  which  combines  in 
its  favour  the  strongest  probabilities.' 


FINAL  CAUSES  AND   THE   POSITIVIST  OBJECTION.  457 

fire  in  my  grate,  I  only  intervene  to  produce  and  combine 
together  the  different  agents  whose  natural  action  behoves  to 
produce  the  effect  I  have  need  of;  but  the  first  step  once 
taken,  all  the  phenomena  constituting  combustion  engender 
each  other,  conformably  to  their  laws,  without  a  new  inter- 
vention of  the  agent ;  so  that  an  observer  who  should  study 
the  series  of  these  phenomena,  without  perceiving  the  first  hand 
that  had  prepared  all,  could  not  seize  that  hand  in  any  special 
act,  and  yet  there  is  there  a  preconceived  plan  and  combination. 

In  the  controversy  between  Leibnitz  and  Clarke,  the  ques- 
tion was  raised  whether  it  would  be  more  for  the  honour  of  a 
workman  to  make  a  work  that  would  go  quite  alone,  without 
having  need  of  help  or  repair,  or  a  work  that  the  hand  of  the 
workman  retouched  from  time  to  time.  Clarke,  starting  from 
the  idea  of  Newton  (and  that  a  false  one),  that  the  planetary 
world  needs  to  be  refitted  from  time  to  time  by  its  Author, 
said  that  it  was  better  that  the  work  should  bear  the  mark 
of  its  dependence,  and  that  the  divine  Author  should  make 
His  power  and  existence  felt  by  personally  appearing  when 
it  was  necessary.  Leibnitz  maintained,  on  the  other  hand, 
that  the  abler  a  workman  is,  the  more  durable  should  his 
work  be,  and  have  in  itself  whereon  to  subsist.  In  our  opin- 
ion Leibnitz  is  right ;  but  because  the  workman  should  not 
have  to  interpose  to  repair  or  maintain  his  work,  it  does  not 
follow  that  he  did  not  interpose  a  first  time  by  an  initial  act, 
which  implicitly  contained  all  ulterior  manifestations. 

It  cannot,  therefore,  be  said,  taking  matters  in  principle, 
that  the  doctrine  of  final  causes  demands  incessant  interven- 
tions of  Providence.  We  must  always  recognise  that  on  cer- 
tain special  points  —  for  instance,  the  origin  of  life,  the  origin 
of  living  species  —  one  seems  almost  forcibly  driven  to  the 
miraculous  intervention  of  the  Deity,  if  we  do  not  wish  to 
lend  ourselves  to  various  hypotheses  which  attempt  to  reduce 
these  diverse  phenomena  to  known  natural  laws.  But  this 
is  a  difficulty  which  we  have  discussed  in  its  place  (Book  i. 
chap,  vii..  Doctrine  of  Evolutiori).  Sufiice  it  here  to  point  out 
that  the  idea  of  final  cause,  taken  in  general,  and  without 
examining  this  or  that  special  problem,  contains  nothing  con- 
trar}'  to  the  idea  of  a  universal  mechanism,  ruled  by  natural 
laws,  of  which  God  might  be  the  primary  author,  and  which 


458  APPENDIX. 

He  might  sustain  by  His  general  action  without  needing  to 
interpose  in  each  particular  act. 

For  the  rest,  the  Positive  school  appears  to  us  less  entitled 
than  any  other  to  dispute  the  incessant  and  universal  inter- 
vention of  the  first  cause  in  phenomena,  since,  strictly  admit- 
ting only  facts  and  relations,  it  knows  not  at  all  whether  there 
are  second  causes,  distinct  from  the  first,  and  having  proper 
virtuality  in  them.  Since  there  are  empirically  only  facts 
and  relations,  and  beyond,  a  vast  unknown  noumenon^  who 
can  tell  that  this  is  not  the  first  and  universal  cause,  which  is 
the  sole  cause,  and  which  immediately  produces  in  a  given 
order  all  the  phenomena  of  the  universe?  And  by  what 
right  could  you  affirm  that,  apart  from  this  unique  cause, 
there  are  second  and  subordinate  causes  that  act  under  it  ? 
When  you  say  that  all  these  phenomena  result  from  the  prop- 
erties of  matter,  what  do  you  mean  to  say  ?  What  do  you 
mean  by  matter  ?  Matter  and  its  properties  are  hidden  causes 
which  are  not  evident  to  experience.'  You  only  know  phenom- 
ena and  laws,  you  say.'  Very  well.  Beyond  that  you  know 
nothing,  then  —  matter  no  more  than  all  the  rest.  There  is, 
then,  beyond  all  phenomena  only  an  unknown  cause,  whose 
mode  of  action  is  unknown  to  you :  you  are  no  more  at 
liberty  to  call  it  matter  than  we  would  be  at  liberty,  if  we 
reasoned  according  to  your  principles,  to  call  it  God. 

According  to  M.  Littre,  the  property  of  accommodating 
itself  to  ends  —  of  adjusting  itself^  as  he  says  —  is  one  of  the 
properties  of  organized  matter.  It  is  of  the  essence  of  this 
matter  to  adapt  itself  to  ends,  as  it  is  of  its  essence  to  con- 
tract or  expand,  to  move  or  to  feel.  One  wonders  to  see  a 
mind  so  familiar  as  that  of  INI.  Littr^  with  the  scientific 
method,  so  easily  satisfied  with  words.  Who  does  not  recog- 
nise here  one  of  those  hidden  qualities  on  which  scholasticism 
lived,  and  which  modern  science  everywhere  tends  to  elimi- 
nate?^ Let  men  but  think  of  it,  and  they  will  own  that 
there  does  not  exist  a  sort  of  entity,  called  organized  matter, 
endowed,  one  knows  not  why  nor  how,  with  the  property  of 
attaining  ends ;  what  really  exists  is  a  totality  of  solids, 
liquids,  tissues,  canals,  hard  parts,  and  soft  parts  —  in  a  word, 

1  This  is  so  true  that  another  Positivist  writer,  M.  Robin,  has  abandoned 
him  on  tliis  point.    (See  above,  Book  i.  chap,  iv.) 


I 


FINAL   CAUSES   AND   THE   POSITIYIST   OBJECTION.  459 

an  ID  calculable  totality  of  second  causes  and  blind  agents 
that  all  unite  in  a  common  action,  which  is  life.  What  must 
be  explained  is,  how  so  many  different  causes  know  how  to 
meet  and  produce  this  common  action,  this  coincidence  of  so 
many  divergent  elements  in  a  single  effect.  To  say  that  this 
rencounter,  this  coincidence,  is  quite  a  simple  thing,  and  is 
explained  by  an  accommodating  virtue  in  matter  (for  is  not 
this  "what  M.  Littr^  calls  the  property  of  adjusting  itself  to 
ends?),  is  to  resuscitate  the  dormitive  and  other  virtues  of 
scholasticism.  In  another  wTitiug,^  M.  LitJ:re  had  opposed 
with  eloquent  vivacity  the  vis  medicatrix  of  the  school  of 
Hippocrates.  Wherein  is  it  more  absurd  to  admit  in  matter 
the  property  of  healing  itself,  than  the  property  of  adjusting 
itself  to  ends? 2 

1  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  15th  April  1846. 

2  Lamennais,  Esqiiisse  d'une  philosophie  (t.  iv.  book  xii.  chap,  vi.),  likewise 
shows  that  the  theory  of  final  causes  in  no  way  requires  a  succeasion  of  super- 
natural interventions  and  of  special  volitions. 


VI. 

OPTIMISM.  — VOLTAIRE  AND   ROUSSEAU. 

(Book  i.  Chaptee  v.  Page  171.) 

THE  question  of  Evil  only  touched  our  subject  indirectly, 
and  we  required  to  pass  it  by,  otherwise  it  would  have 
absorbed  all  the  rest.  Our  aim  was  principally  to  seek  in 
the  universe  wisdom,  not  goodness,  leaving  this  latter  question 
to  theodicy  properly  so  called.  However,  not  to  neglect  it 
entirely,  independently  of  some  views  set  forth  in  the  text, 
let  us  here  recapitulate  the  great  debate  raised  on  this  question 
in  the  18th  century  between  Voltaire  and  Rousseau.  Nearly 
everything  of  most  weight  that  can  be  said  for  and  against 
Providence  is  to  be  found  collected  in  this  famous  contro- 
versy, in  which  Kant  was  indirectly  mixed  up. 

The  subject  of  debate  is  the  doctrine  of  optimism  professed 
by  Pope  in  his  Essay  on  Man.  According  to  the  English 
poet,  in  nature  all  is  good ;  and  his  poem,  in  this  respect,  is 
only  the  poetic  translation  of  the  philosophic  doctrine  of 
Leibnitz,  who  in  his  Theodicy  afBrmed,  as  is  known,  that  '  the 
world  as  it  is,  is  the  best  of  all  possible  worlds.'  Pope  says 
just  the  same  thing  in  this  passage : 

'  All  Nature  is  but  Art  unknown  to  thee  ; 
All  Chance,  Direction  which  thou  canst  not  see  ; 
All  Discord,  Harmony  not  understood  ; 
All  partial  Evil,  universal  Good  ; 
And  spite  of  Pride,  in  erring  Reason's  spite, 
One  truth  is  clear,  Whatever  is,  is  right.'  i 

These  affirmations  excited  in  England  a  keen  controversy, 
with  which  we  shall  not  meddle.  Pope  was  accused  of  impiety, 
as  Montesquieu  had  been  of  atheism  and  fatalism.  Warburton 
defended  him ;  Bolingbroke  and  Shaftesbury  took  the  side  of 

1  Essay  on  Man,  Ep.  i.  p.  289. 
460 


VOLTAIRE   AND  ROUSSEAU.  461 

his  doctrine.  This  whole  philosophic  quarrel  had  been  forgot- 
ten when  there  occurred  a  lamentable  event,  one  of  those  disas- 
ters to  which  humanity  is  always  exposed,  and  which  always 
take  it  by  surprise  —  the  earthquake  of  Lisbon  in  1755. 

In  our  climes,  so  rarely  visited  by  this  scourge,  men  were 
confounded  to  learn  that  a  vast  subterranean  wave  had  shaken 
Spain,  Africa,  Italy,  and  Sicily.  In  a  few  hours  Lisbon  was 
overthrown,  and  almost  completely  destroyed ;  and,  a  fire 
being  added  to  the  disorder  of  nature,  from  50,000  to  60,000 
people  perished.  The  following  is  the  account  given  imme- 
diately after  the  event  by  the  Gazette  of  France  (No.  567, 
November  1755)  :  -  - '  We  have  been  informed  by  a  courier 
from  Lisbon,  that  on  the  first  of  this  month,  about  nine  in 
the  morning,  the  earthquake  was  felt  there  in  a  terrible 
manner.  It  overthrew  the  half  of  the  city,  all  the  churches, 
and  the  king's  palace.  Happily,  no  accident  happened  to 
the  royal  family,  which  was  at  Belem,  though  the  palace  they 
occupied  there  was  injured.  When  the  courier  left  they  were 
still  in  huts,  sleeping  in  coaches,  and  had  been  nearly  twenty- 
four  hours  without  servants,  and  without  almost  anything  to 
eat.  The  part  of  the  city  not  thrown  down  has  taken  fire, 
and  was  still  burning  when  the  courier  left.  .  .  .  People 
allege  that  50,000  inhabitants  have  perished  in  Lisbon.' 

Let  us  also  quote  the  poetical  and  eloquent  passage  in 
which  Goethe  has  related  the  same  event :  '  On  the  1st  of 
November  1755  occurred  the  earthquake  of  Lisbon,  and  spread 
over  the  world,  accustomed  to  peace  and  tranquillity,  a  tre- 
mendous terror.  A  great  and  splendid  capital,  which  was  also 
a  commercial  city,  is  suddenly  overtaken  by  a  most  dreadful 
calamity.  The  earth  quakes  and  moves,  the  sea  boils,  the 
ships  collide ;  houses,  churches,  and  towers  fall  down ;  the 
royal  palace  is  partly  swallowed  up  by  the  sea.  The  cleft 
earth  seems  to  cast  forth  fire  and  flames,  for  on  every  hand 
fire  and  smoke  proceed  from  the  ruins.  Sixty  thousand  per- 
sons, who  the  moment  before  were  enjoying  tranquillity  and 
the  pleasures  of  life,  perish  together,  and  the  happiest  is  he 
who  has  not  been  allowed  to  foresee  and  to  feel  the  calamity. 
.  .  .  Thus  nature  seems  to  manifest  on  all  hands  its  bound' 
less  power.' 

Such  Avas  the  event  that  moved  and  inflamed  the  imasrina- 


i62  APPENDIX. 

tion  of  Voltaire,  and  inspired  his  poem  on  the  Earthquake 
of  Lisbon,  one  of  his  finest  works.  It  is  entirely  a  philosophi- 
cal poem,  directed  against  Pope's  All  is  good.  He  successively 
passes  in  review  all  the  explanations  of  this  fatal  event  that 
can  be  given  to  justify  Providence,  and  states  his  objections 
to  them. 

1.  The  first  explanation  of  the  evil  consists  in  saying  that 
it  is  a  chastisement,  an  expiation.  But  the  expiation  of  what  ? 
For  every  one  is  smitten  indiscriminately,  the  innocent  as 
well  as  the  guilty: 

'  Will  you  say,  while  this  mass  of  victims  you  hehold  : 
God  is  avenged  ;  their  death  but  pays  their  crimes  ? 
"What  crime,  what  fault  have  these  poor  infants  done, 
Laid  crushed  and  bleeding  on  the  maternal  breast  ? 
"Was  Lisbon,  now  destroyed,  more  given  to  vice 
Than  London  or  Paris,  immersed  in  luxury? 
Lisbon  is  swallowed  up,  in  Paris  still  they  dance.' 

2.  It  is  a  great  mystery,  and  the  explanation  is  certainly 
insufficient.  But  Pope,  like  Plato,  Leibnitz,  and  Malebranche^ 
has  given  another :  '  Evil,'  he  has  said,  '  is  the  effect  of  gen- 
eral laws,  to  which  God  behoves  to  submit,  for  He  has  made 
them.'  If  this  is  a  profound  explanation,  it  is  very  hard  for 
the  human  species : 

'  Do  you  say,  it  is  the  effect  of  lasting  laws 
That  force  the  choice  of  a  God  good  and  free  ? 
All  is  well,  you  say,  and  all  is  necessary. 
What !  would  the  universe,  without  this  hellish  gulf, 
"Without  engulfing  Lisbon,  would  it  have  been  worse  ? 

Has  not  the  Eternal  Artist  in  His  hands 

Infinite  means  all  ready  for  His  plans  ? 

I  humbly  do  desire,  not  to  offend  my  Master, 

That  this  dark  burning  gulf  of  sulphur  and  saltpetre 

Its  flames  had  kindled  in  the  desert's  heart ; 

For  I  respect  my  God,  but  love  the  universe.' 

3.  Pope  had  further  said  that  the  world  forms  a  systematic 
whole,  in  which  each  detail,  each  stone  and  blade  of  grass,  is 
like  a  ring  in  an  immense  universal  chain  :  the  smallest  ring 
removed,  the  whole  chain  is  broken.  Voltaire  sees  nothing 
but  fatalism  in  tliis  explanation  : 

'  God  holds  the  chain  in  hand,  and  is  Himself  not  chained  ; 
All  is  arranged  by  beneficent  choice. 
Free  is  He  ;  He  is  just,  and  not  implacable. 
"U'hy,  then,  do  we  still  suffer  under  a  just  Master? ' 


VOLTAIRE   AND  ROUSSEAU.  46S 

Thus  the  theory  of  the  concatenation  of  beings,  the  ci/xap- 
fierf]  of  the  Stoics,  a  theory  that  remains  the  same  "with 
Providence  and  with  fatalism,  is  only  in  Voltaire's  view  a 
fatalist  theory.  He  renews  the  dilemma  of  Epicurus  :  either 
God  could,  but  would  not,  prevent  evil,  and  then  He  is 
wicked ;  or  else  He  could  not,  and  then  He  is  impotent. 

4.  Another  explanation  is  that  there  is  no  absolute  evil, 
and  that  nature  proceeds  by  compensations:  such  an  evil 
produces  such  a  good.  Voltaire  does  not  admit  this  principle 
of  compensations: 

'  Would  the  sad  inmates  of  those  regions  spoiled, 
In  all  their  anguish,  would  they  be  consoled 
If  one  said  to  them,  "  Fall,  and  calmly  die, 
For  the  welfare  of  the  world ;  your  houses  are  destroyed,  — 
Other  hands  will  build  your  burnt-down  palaces; 
The  North  will  richer  grow  from  all  your  fatal  loss  ; 
Your  ills  are  all  a  good,  viewed  under  general  laws  "  ? ' 

And  further  on : 

'  This  evil,  as  you  say,  is  another  being's  good; 
And  from  my  gory  corpse  will  a  thousand  insects  rise. 
When  death  completes  the  ills  I  have  endured, 
There  is  this  fine  solace,  to  be  devoured  by  worms  I 

Console  me  not,  I  pray;  you  aggravate  my  pains. 
And  I  can  only  see  in  you  the  vain  attempt 
Of  a  proud  wretch  feigning  to  be  content ! ' 

5.  It  has  been  said,  again,  that  God  being  an  omnipotent 
Master,  we  ought  to  submit  to  His  will,  and  even  to  His  caprices. 
Pope  repeats,  after  St.  Paul :  '  The  vessel  does  not  ask  the  pot- 
ter why  he  has  made  it  coarse.'    Voltaire  replies  as  follows :  — 

'  The  vessel,  we  well  know,  does  not  the  potter 'ask, 
"  Why,  then,  am  I  so  vile,  so  feeble,  and  so  coarse  ?  " 
It  has  no  power  of  speech,  nor  has  it  power  of  thought. 
This  urn,  which  in  formation  broken  falls 
Out  of  the  potter's  hand,  received  no  heart. 
That  it  might  good  desire  and  feel  calamity.' 

The  metaphor,  in  effect,  is  unjust :  I  protest,  I  cry,  which 
the  vessel  cannot  do. 

6.  Then  follows  the  Christian  explanation  by  redefmption : 
Evil  comes  from  sin,  and  redeems  sin.  Here  again  Voltaire 
triumphs : 

'  A  God  came  to  console  our  much  afflicted  race; 
He  visited  the  earth,  and  yet  did  it  not  change. 


464 


APPENDIX. 


An  arrogant  sophist  tells  us  that  He  could  not; 

He  could,  the  other  says,  but  only  He  would  not. 

No  doubt  but  that  He  would ;  and  while  they  reason  thus, 

Internal  fires  have  swallowed  up  Lisbon.' 

Redemption  has  left  the  world  as  it  was,  and  can  only- 
have  its  effect  in  the  other  world. 

Should  Voltaire's  conclusions  after  these  objections  be 
entirely  sceptical  ?  Having  opposed,  with  perfect  good  sense, 
the  excesses  of  optimism,  must  he  be  regarded  as  a  partisan 
of  pessimism? 

No ;  he  explains,  he  does  not  wish  to  excite  to  revolt,  but 
he  finds  himself  in  presence  of  an  enigma  of  which  he  seeks 
the  key  with  pain,  but  without  impiety. 

'  The  author  of  the  poem  on  the  calamity  of  Lisbon  does 
not  oppose  the  illustrious  Pope,'  says  Voltaire  in  his  preface. 
'He  thinks  with  him  on  all  points;  but,  affected  by  the 
misfortunes  of  men,  he  protests  against  the  abuse  that  may  be 
made  of  this  maxim.  All  is  good.  He  adopts  the  sad  and 
ancient  truth,  that  there  is  evil  on  the  earth  ;  he  declares  that 
the  saying  All  is  good,  taken  absolutely,  and  without  hope  of 
a  hereafter,  is  only  an  insult  to  the  sorrows  of  life.' 

His  poem  is  thus  rather  a  vindication  of  a  compensating 
hereafter  than  a  plea  against  Providence  : 

*  We  have  need  of  a  God  to  speak  to  mortal  men; 
It  but  belongs  to  Him  to  interpret  His  work. 

One  day  all  will  be  loell,  this  is  what  is  our  hope; 
All  even  now  is  loell,  this  is  illusion. 

I  do  not  against  Providence  rebel ; 
I  can  but  suffer  without  murmuring.' 

What  other  conclusion  can  be  come  to  on  the  question  of 
evil  ?  Voltaire's  objections  are  rather  religious  than  impious. 
He  does  not  exclude  Providence,  but  claims  to  hope  ;  so  that 
the  sum  of  this  debate  is  that  every  one  is  agreed ;  and  J.  J. 
Rousseau  will  be  found  to  conclude  likewise. 

But  before  analyzing  the  pages  in  which  this  powerful 
writer  has  criticised  Voltaire's  poem,  let  us  recall  the  opinion 
of  a  great  philosopher,  Kant,  who,  then  thirty  years  old  and  a 
professor  in  the  University  of  Koenigsberg,  was  moved,  like 
all  the  world,  by  the  disaster  of  Lisbon.     He  said  his  say  on 


VOLTAIRE   AND   ROUSSEAU.  465 

the  question  engaging  us,  in  two  untranslated  writings  —  the 
one  geological,  the  other  purely  philosophical.  The  first  is 
entitled,  On  the  Earthquake  of  Lisbon  (1756)  ;  the  other,  On 
Optimism^  and  appeared  in  1759. 

To  his  treatise  on  the  earthquake  of  Lisbon,  Kant  had 
added  a  preamble,  containing  considerations  favourable  to 
optimism.  He  there  set  forth  the  moral  utility  that  man 
could  derive  from  those  catastrophes.  They,  in  effect,  remind 
him  that  all  is  not  made  for  him  on  the  earth,  and  that  he 
himself  is  not  made  exclusively  for  the  earth.  He  ought, 
therefore,  to  look  beyond,  and  think  that  all  his  being  is  not 
destroyed  by  death.  In  these  observations,  Kant  already 
rises  above  Pope  and  Voltaire  :  '  The  consideration  of  these 
terrible  events  is,'  he  says,  '  instructive.  It  humbles  man  by 
making  him  see  that  he  has  not  the  right,  or  at  least  has  lost 
the  right,  to  expect  from  the  laws  of  nature  ordained  by  God 
consequences  always  agreeable  to  him  ;  and  perhaps  by  this 
means  he  also  learns  that  this  arena  of  his  passions  ought  not 
to  be  the  end  of  all  his  thousjlits.'  Such  are  the  two  lessons 
that  these  scourges  teach  us.  Kant  then  develops  the  point 
of  view  of  compensations,  not  in  the  superficial  sense  that  evil 
is. compensated  by  good,  and  may  be  annulled  thereby,  but  in 
the  sense  that  particular  evil  is  only  an  insignificant  conse- 
quence of  general  utility.  He  forms  in  some  sort  the  theory 
of  earthquakes  from  the  point  of  view  of  human  utility. 
Whence  come  these  famous  phenomena?  —  From  the  internal 
fire,  which  is  the  very  condition  of  the  existence  of  living 
beings  on  the  earth.  Suppose  the  earth  refrigerated,  as  the 
moon  is  said  to  be,  and  life  will  at  once  cease  on  our  planet. 
To  prevent  this  general  evil,  there  must  be  accidentally  pro- 
duced evils,  —  deadly,  indeed,  but  particular  and  exceptional. 
That  the  earthquake  should  only  occur  in  deserts  is  an  impos- 
sibility so  much  the  more  absolute,  that  the  internal  fire  is 
necessary  for  human  industry.  We  must,  then,  accept  this 
necessity,  and,  to  repeat  a  word  as  true  as  commonplace,  bear 
what  cannot  be  prevented. 

'  One  is  scandalized,'  says  Kant,  'to  see  so  terrible  a  scourge 
for  the  human  race  considered  from  the  point  of  view  of  utility. 
T  am  convinced  that  this  utility  would  willingly  be  renounced 
if  we  could  be  freed  from  the  fear  and  danger  attached  to  it. 


466  APPENDIX. 

We  have  an  unreasonable  pretension  to  an  absolutely  agree- 
able life,  and  would  have  the  advantages  without  the  incon- 
veriences.  Men  born  to  die,  we  cannot  bear  that  some  have 
died  in  an  earthquake ;  strangers  here  below,  and  having  no 
possession,  we  are  inconsolable  that  earthly  property  is  lost, 
property  which  would  have  perished  of  itself,  in  virtue  of  the 
universal  laws  of  nature.  It  is  easy  to  understand  that  if 
men  build  on  a  soil  composed  of  inflammable  materials,  sooner 
or  later  all  the  magnificence  of  their  structures  must  be  over- 
thrown by  earthquakes.  But  should  one,  therefore,  seem 
impatient  towards  the  ways  of  Providence?  Would  it  not 
be  wiser  to  say,  It  was  necessary  for  earthquakes  to  happen 
from  time  to  time,  but  it  was  not  necessary  to  build  magnifi- 
cent dwellings  there  ? ' 

It  is  for  us  to  foresee  disasters,  and  prevent  them  if  we 
can,  by  adapting  our  structures,  for  example,  to  the  nature 
of  the  soil. 

'  Although  the  cause  that  produces  earthquakes,'  continues 
Kant,  '  is  deadly  to  man  in  a  certain  point  of  view,  in  others 
it  recompenses  this  evil  with  usury.  We  know,  in  effect,  that 
the  warm  springs  that  are  so  useful  to  man's  health  owe  their 
mineral  properties  and  their  heat  to  the  same  causes  that  cause 
the  earth  to  quake.  ...  If  this  be  so,  as  we  cannot  but  admit, 
we  will  not  object  to  the  beneficent  effects  of  this  subterranean 
fire,  that  communicates  a  gentle  warmth  to  the  earth  when 
the  sun  refuses  his,  and  that  contributes  to  favour  the  vege- 
tation of  plants  and  all  the  economy  of  nature.  In  view 
of  so  many  advantages,  are  the  evils  that  may  happen  to  the 
human  race,  because  of  this  or  that  disaster,  of  such  a  nature 
as  to  absolve  us  from  the  gratitude  we  owe  to  Providence 
for  its  other  benefits  ? ' 

The  true  force  of  this  line  of  argument  evidently  consists, 
not  in  saying  that  this  evil  is  compensated  by  that  good,  but 
that  this  evil  is  an  accident  connected  with  a  general  cause, 
without  which  there  would  have  been  no  good. 

Kant's  second  writing.  On  Optimism,  is  exclusively  philo- 
sophical. The  philosopher  here  essays  to  reply  to  an  entirely 
metaphysical  objection  to  optimism.  There  cannot,  it  is  said, 
be  a  realized  maximum.  Thus  the  greatest  number  possible 
cannot  be  realized ;    every  real  number  can  always  be  aug- 


VOLTAIRE   AND   ROUSSEAU.  467 

meiited.  The  maximum  is  a  virtuality  impossible  in  actu. 
How,  then,  could  there  be  a  world  that  should  be  the  best 
possible  ?  The  world,  being  finite,  is  necessarily  imperfect ;  no 
doubt  it  may  always  be  less  and  less  imperfect,  but  without 
ever  being  able  to  reach  a  fixed  limit  beyond  which  a  better 
could  not  be  conceived.  It  is  the  objection  that  Fenelon 
had  brought  against  Malebranche,  the  conclusion  of  which 
is,  that  there  is  no  best  possible  world  in  itself,  and  that  if 
this  world  exists,  and  no  other,  it  is  because  of  the  free  choice 
of  God. 

The  objection  rests  on  a  confusion  that  Kant  mentions 
at  the  first,  by  distinguishing  the  optimum  of  a  world  from 
the  maximum  of  a  number.  There  is  contradiction  for  the 
maximum^  but  not  for  the  optimum.  Quantity  is  of  quite 
a  different  nature  from  quality.  The  maximum  of  quality 
exists,  and  God  Himself  is  the  optimum  in  itself.  No  doubt, 
the  world  cannot  be  God ;  but,  exclusive  of  this  sole  condition, 
it  can  realize  the  relative  optimum  —  in  other  words,  be  the 
best  possible. 

'Without,'  says  Kant,  'insisting  on  this  point,  that  the 
degree  of  reality  of  a  thing  is  not  suitably  conceived  in  rela- 
tion to  an  inferior  degree,  by  comparing  it  to  the  relation  of  a 
number  to  its  units,  I  shall  content  myself  with  the  following 
consideration,  to  show  that  the  proposed  instance  is  not  appli- 
cable here.  There  is  no  greatest  number  possible,  but  there  is 
a  highest  degree  of  possible  reality  ;  and  that  degree  is  found 
in  God.  The  conception  of  the  greatest  possible  finite  number 
is  the  abstract  conception  of  plurality  in  general,  which  is 
finite,  which,  however,  can  still  be  added  to  without  it  ceasing 
to  be  finite ;  in  which,  consequently,  the  fixity  of  greatness 
places  no  determinate  limit,  but  only  limits  in  general,  because 
of  which  the  conception  of  the  greatest  possible  cannot  be 
applied  as  predicate  to  any  number.  For  if  any  determinate 
quantity  be  thought  of,  one  can  still  add  a  unit  without  pre- 
judice to  the  character  of  finite  that  belongs  to  it.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  degree  of  reality  of  a  world  is  absolutely 
determinate ;  the  limits  of  a  world  the  best  possible  are  not 
only  set  in  a  general  or  abstract  manner,  but  set  by  a  degree 
it  must  absolutely  come  short  of.  Independence,  the  attribute 
of  self-sufficiency,  omnipresence,  power  to  create,  are  perfec* 


468 


APPENDIX. 


tions  that  no  world  can  have.  It  is  not  here,  then,  as  in  the 
mathematical  infinite,  where  the  finite  indefinitely  approaches 
the  infinite,  according  to  the  law  of  continuity.  Here  the 
interval  between  infinite  and  finite  reality  is  set  by  a  deter- 
minate greatness  that  makes  their  difference.  The  world  that 
is  found  at  that  degree  of  the  scale  of  beings  where  the  abyss 
opens  that  contains  the  incommensurable  degree  of  perfection, 
that  world  is  the  most  perfect  among  all  that  is  finite.' 

There  would  thus  be  a  limit  beyond  which  there  is  only 
absolute  perfection.  I  know  not  whether  Kant,  twenty  years 
later,  would  have  been  fully  satisfied  with  this  passage.  It 
even  appears  that  he  did  not  much  like  to  be  spoken  to  about 
this  wo"k.  It  is  not  the  less  true  that  his  penetrating  mind 
has  justly  signalized  the  difference  between  optimism  and  the 
maximum  —  the  one  having  no  limit,  while  the  other  may  have. 

Let  us  now  come  to  Jean-Jacques  Rousseau.  Voltaire  had 
sent  him  his  two  poems  on  natural  law  and  the  disaster  of 
Lisbon ;  and  in  his  letter  of  thanks,  while  expressing  his 
admiration,  Rousseau  made  his  reservations  with  that  inde- 
pendence that  is  not  always  agreeable.^  Voltaire  was  stung 
to  the  quick,  and  from  this  moment  the  rupture  was  complete 
between  the  two  philosophers,  already  embroiled  with  regard 
to  the  theatre  of  Geneva. 

Rousseau  first  opposes  to  Voltaire  a  sentimental  reason,  in 
which  he  conforms  to  the  general  spirit  of  his  philosophy. 
His  heart  resists  the  doctrines  of  the  Lisbon  poem ;  they 
appear  to  him  sad  and  cruel ;  they  weaken  the  moral  powers. 
In  this  respect  he  prefers  the  maxim  All  is  good.  This  objec- 
tion is  not  entirely  just,  if  one  recalls  Voltaire's  last  word,  or 
at  least  it  could  not  be  applied  in  all  its  strictness  to  the 
Lisbon  poem.  It  would,  on  the  other  hand,  very  well  apply 
to  another  of  Voltaire's  writings,  his  famous  Candide,  a  master- 
piece of  irony  and  sarcasm,  which  breathes  only  contempt  of 
the  human  race,  and  is  not  written  with  the  heart  like  the 
Lisbon  poem.  Here  Voltaire  submits  to  Providence,  and 
Rousseau  seems  to  forget  this. 

'  Pope's  poem,'  he  tells  him,  '  mitigates  my  ills,  and  brings 
me  patience :  yours  aggravates  my  pains,  and  excites  me  to 
murmur,  and,  depriving  me  of  all  but  an  enfeebled  hope,  it 

1  J.  J.  Rousseau,  Correspond.  18th  August  1756. 


VOLTAIRE   AND   ROUSSEAU.  469 

reduces  me  to  despair.  .  .  .  Tell  me  who  abuses  sentimeut  or 
reason?  ...  If  the  difficulty  of  the  origin  of  evil  forced  you 
to  alter  some  one  of  the  perfections  of  God,  why  seek  to  justify 
His  power  at  the  expense  of  His  goodness?'  At  any  rate, 
this  is  still  only  an  objection  of  prejudice,  resulting  from 
incompatibility  of  disposition. 

liousseau  then  seeks  for  the  cause  of  evil,  and  finds  it,  as 
regards  moral  evil,  in  human  nature,  and  as  regards  physical 
evil,  in  nature  in  general.  As  for  man,  having  received  from 
God  liberty  and  feeling,  he  must  consequently  know  evil  and 
sorrow.  '  I  do  not  see  that  the  cause  of  moral  evil  can  be 
sought  elsewhere  than  in  man  free,  perfected,  therefore  cor- 
rupt ;  and  as  to  physical  evils,  if  sensible  and  impassive 
matter  is  a  contradiction,  .  .  .  they  are  inevitable  in  every 
system  of  which  man  forms  part ;  .  .  .  and  then  the  question 
is  not,  why  man  is  not  perfectly  happy,  but  why  he  exists.' 
Man,  as  he  is,  is  composed  partly  of  matter :  he  is  therefore 
sensible  of  pain,  as  of  pleasure ;  for  pleasure  is  only  a  less 
pain,  as  pain  is  only  a  less  pleasure  —  they  are  degrees  of  a 
scale. 

Further  on,  Rousseau  expresses  the  same  thought  as  Kant, 
in  adopting  the  principle  of  Pope  and  Leibnitz,  who  only  see 
in  evil  an  accidental  effect  of  universal  laws :  '  You  would 
have  preferred  the  earthquake  to  have  occurred  in  the  heart 
of  a  desert  rather  than  at  Lisbon.  Can  it  be  doubted  that 
they  also  occur  in  the  deserts?  .  .  .  What  would  such  a 
privilege  signify?  Would  it  mean,  then,  that  the  order  of 
the  world  must  change  according  to  our  caprices?  that  na- 
ture is  subject  to  our  laws  ?  and  that  to  forbid  an  earthquake 
in  any  place,  we  would  only  have  to  build  a  town  there  ? ' 

What  strikes  and  moves  us  in  these  great  disorders  of 
nature  is  the  suddenness  of  the  scourge  and  the  number  of 
the  dead ;  but  this  earthquake  teaches  us  nothing  new,  and 
we  know  well  that  all  those  who  have  died  at  once  had  to 
die  some  day.  Must  they  be  lamented  because  their  death 
was  sudden?  'Is  it  a  sadder  end,'  replies  Rousseau,  'than 
that  of  a  dying  man,  overwhelmed  with  useless  cares,  whom 
a  lawyer  and  heirs  do  not  allow  to  breathe,  whom  doctors 
assassinate  in  his  bed  at  their  ease,  and  whom  barbarous 
priests  skilfully  cause  to  taste  death  ? ' 


470  APPENDIX. 

If  evil  is  a  consequence  of  natural  laws,  it  would  only  be 
avoided  by  suppressing  nature  itself,  that  is,  the  very  condi- 
tion of  good.  In  order  not  to  suffer,  we  must  have  been 
incapable  of  enjoying ;  in  order  not  to  die,  we  ought  not  to 
have  been  called  to  live.  It  is  said,  I  would  rather  not  have 
been ;  but  it  is  said  from  the  lips  more  than  from  the  heart. 
Most  men  would  rather  suffer  than  die,  and  these  still  pro- 
nounce in  favour  of  Providence. 

'  It  is  difficult,'  we  read  further,  '  to  find  on  this  point  good 
faith  among  men,  and  to  calculate  all  with  philosophers ;  be- 
•cause  the  latter,  in  the  comparison  of  good  and  evil,  always 
forget  the  pleasant  feeling  of  existence,  independent  of  every 
other  sensation ;  and  the  vanity  of  despising  death  requires 
the  others  to  calumniate  life,  almost  like  those  women  who, 
with  a  stained  robe  and  scissors,  pretend  to  prefer  holes  to 
•stains.  You  think,  with  Erasmus,  that  few  people  would 
wish  to  be  born  in  the  same  circumstances  they  have  lived 
in ;  but  such  a  one  puts  a  very  high  price  on  his  merchandise 
"who  would  greatly  lower  it  if  he  had  any  hope  of  closing  the 
bargain.  Besides,  whom  am  I  to  believe  ?  The  rich,  .  .  . 
literary  people,  of  all  classes  of  men  the  most  sedentary,  the 
most  sickly,  the  most  thoughtful,  and,  consequently,  the  most 
unhappy?  .  .  .  Consult  a  citizen,  ...  an  artisan,  ...  a 
peasant  even,'  etc. 

Life  is  good,  let  us  accept  the  ills  of  it ;  such  is  Rousseau's 
conclusion  on  this  question. 

As  to  the  chain  of  beings,  Voltaire's  verse,  already  quoted, 
and  the  notes  he  had  added  to  his  poem,  also  called  for  a 
reply.  Change  a  grain  of  sand,  and  you  change  all ;  '  but,' 
said  Voltaire,  'is  free  will  compatible  with  this  theory?' 
That  is  another  question.  What  is  certain  is  that  every 
cause  supposes  an  effect,  just  as  every  effect  is  determined  by 
a  cause.  Voltaire,  however,  does  not  admit  this  chain  of  the 
world.  '  One  may,'  he  says,  '  suppress  a  body  without  injur- 
ing the  whole.  If  a  pebble  were  suppressed,  wherein  would 
that  injure  the  universe  ? ' 

'  A  drop  of  water,'  says  he  in  his  notes,  '  a  grain  of  sand, 
more  or  less,  can  cause  no  change  in  the  general  constitution. 
Nature  has  not  subjected  itself  to  any  precise  quantity,  nor 
to   any  precise   form.     No    planet   moves   in  an  absolutely 


VOLTAIRE  AND  ROUSSEAU.  471 

regular  curve.  .  .  .  Nature  never  acts  strictly.  .  .  .  There  are 
events  that  have  effects,  and  others  that  have  none.  .  .  .  Sev- 
eral events  remain  without  filiation.  .  .  .  The  wheels  of  a 
coach  serve  to  make  it  go ;  but  whether  they  raise  a  little 
more  or  less  dust,  the  journey  is  made  all  the  same.' 

Here  Voltaire  denies  the  Leibnitzian  principle  of  sufficient 
reason,  and  contradicts  Spinoza's  axiom,  '  Ex  causa  determi- 
nata  sequitur  effectus.^  Rousseau  defends  against  Voltaire 
this  precision,  this  determination  of  nature  always  acting 
according  to  mathematical  laws,  often  complex,  but  not  less 
strict  because  we  cannot  grasp  them : 

'  Far  from  thinking  that  nature  is  not  subject  to  precise 
quantities  and  figures,  I  would  hold,  on  the  contrary,  that  it 
alone  strictly  follows  this  precision.  ...  As  to  these  pre- 
tended irregularities,  can  it  be  doubted  that  they  have  all 
their  physical  causes  ?  These  apparent  irregularities  come, 
no  doubt,  from  some  law  we  are  ignorant  of.' 

Let  us  remark,  in  passing,  that  astronomy  has  proved  the 
truth  of  these  assertions,  and  that  the  irregularities  instanced 
by  Voltaire  in  the  motion  of  the  planets  are  comprised  in 
Newton's  law. 

'Let  us  suppose,'  continues  Rousseau,  'two  weights  in 
equilibrium,  and  still  unequal.  Add  to  the  smaller  the  quan- 
tity by  which  they  differ.  Either  the  two  weights  will  remain 
in  equilibrium,  and  we  shall  have  a  cause  without  effect,  or 
the  equilibrium  will  be  broken,  and  we  shall  have  an  effect 
without  cause.  But  if  the  weights  were  of  iron,  and  there 
were  a  grain  of  loadstone  hidden  under  one  of  them,  the  pre- 
cision of  nature  would  then  deprive  it  of  the  appearance  of 
precision,  and,  by  means  of  exactitude,  it  would  appear  to 
want  it.' 

Thus  the  doctrine,  there  is  no  cause  without  an  effect,  is 
as  true  as  the  converse ;  and  when  a  cause  does  not  produce 
its  effect,  it  is  because  it  is  arrested  by  another  cause : 

'You  distinguish  the  events  that  have  consequences  and 
those  that  have  none.  I  doubt  the  validity  of  this  distinction. 
.  .  .  The  dust  a  carriage  raises  can  have  no  influence  on  the 
progress  of  the  vehicle,  nor  on  the  rest  of  the  world.  ...  I 
see  a  thousand  plausible  reasons  why  it  was  not  indifferent 
to  Europe  that  one  day  the  heiress  of  Burgundy  had  her 


472  APPENDIX. 

head  well  or  ill  dressed,  nor  to  the  destiny  of  Rome  that 
Caesar  turned  his  eyes  to  the  left  or  the  right.' 

With  the  same  force  and  dexterity  Rousseau  maintains 
against  Voltaire  the  principle  of  good  relative  to  the  whole, 
and  not  to  a  part : 

'You  tell  man,  I  must  be  as  dear  to  my  Master  —  I,  a 
thinking  and  sentient  being  —  as  the  planets  that  probably 
do  not  feel.  .  .  .  But  the  system  of  this  universe,  that  pro- 
duces, preserves,  and  perpetuates  all  these  sentient  and  think- 
ing beings,  must  be  dearer  to  Him  than  a  single  one  of  these 
beings.  ...  I  believe,  I  hope,  I  am  worth  more  in  the  eyes 
of  God  than  the  territory  of  a  planet ;  but  if  the  planets  are 
inhabited,  .  .  .  why  should  I  be  worth  more  in  His  eyes  than 
all  the  inhabitants  of  Saturn  ?  '  In  a  word,  the  existence  of 
a  living  being  is  connected  with  all  sorts  of  laws  more  pre- 
cious than  that  one  being. 

'But,'  says  Voltaire,  'the  nice  comfort  of  being  eaten  by 
worms  ! '  Rousseau  replies  to  this  whim,  '  That  the  carcase 
of  a  man  should  feed  worms,  wolves,  or  plants,  is  not,  I  grant, 
a  recompense  for  the  man's  death ;  but  if,  in  the  system  of 
this  universe,  it  is  necessary  for  the  preservation  of  the  human 
race  that  there  should  be  a  circulation  of  substance  between 
men,  animals,  and  vegetables,  then  the  special  evil  of  an 
individual  corresponds  to  the  general  good.' 

Drawing  to  a  close,  Rousseau  ends  by  coinciding  with  Vol- 
taire. Rousseau  does  not  deny  that  there  is  evil  in  the  world, 
and  Voltaire  declares  that  he  meant  to  say  nothing  else ;  so 
it  is  only  the  form  that  differs : 

'  To  return  to  the  system  that  you  attack,  I  believe  it  can- 
not be  suitably  examined  without  carefully  distinguishing 
the  particular  evil  of  which  no  philosopher  has  denied  the 
existence,  from  the  general  evil  which  optimism  denies.  The 
question  is  not,  whether  each  of  us  suffers  or  not,  but  whether 
it  was  good  for  the  universe  to  be,  and  whether  our  svils 
were  inevitable  in  its  constitution.  Thus  the  addition  of  an 
article  would  render,  it  seems,  the  proposition  more  exact; 
and,  in  place  of  saying.  All  is  good,  it  would  perhaps  be  bet- 
ter to  say.  The  whole  is  good,  or.  All  is  good  for  the  whole.^ 

Thus  no  one  really  denies  the  existence  of  evil;  and  if  the 
Stoics  appeared  to  do  so,  it  was  in  words  rather  than  in  deed 


VOLTAIRE   AND   ROUSSEAU.  473 

Only  the  question  is,  Whether  this  word  is  absolute  or  rela- 
tive, universal  or  partial ;  whether  it  prevails  over  good,  or 
whether,  on  the  other  hand,  good  prevails.  A  question  diffi- 
cult to  decide,  and  which  will  usually  be  decided  by  the  feel- 
ings and  imagination  of  each  one.  Good-humoured  people  are 
optimists,  the  bad-humoured  are  pessimists.  La  Rochefou- 
cauld said,  '  Happiness  is  in  the  taste,  not  in  things.'  Expe- 
rience gives  us  no  satisfactory  solution,  and  the  question  must 
be  decided  b}^  a  priori  reasons,  as  Rousseau  again  says : 

'  The  true  principles  of  optimism  can  neither  be  deduced 
from  the  properties  of  matter  nor  from  the  mechanism  of  the 
universe,  but  only  from  the  perfections  of  God,  who  presides 
over  all ;  so  that  the  existence  of  God  is  not  proved  by  the 
svstem  of  Pope,  but  the  system  of  Pope  by  the  existence 
of  God.' 

In  other  words,  optimism  is  the  consequence  of  the  existence 
of  God,  and  cannot  be  contradicted  by  experience.  The  world 
is  as  good  as  it  could  be,  because  God  cannot  be  the  devil  — 
that  is  to  say,  the  principle  of  evil.^ 

'  All  these  questions,'  says  Rousseau,  '  again,  are  reducible 
to  that  of  the  existence  of  God.  If  God  exists,  He  is  perfect ; 
if  perfect.  He  is  wise,  powerful ;  if  wise  and  powerful,  my  soul 
is  immortal ;  if  my  soul  is  immortal,  thirty  years  are  nothing 
to  me,  and  are  perhaps  necessary  to  the  welfare  of  the 
universe.' 

It  is  evident  that  this  conclusion  is  not,  after  all,  very 
different  from  that  of  Voltaire  : 

'  One  day  all  will  be  well;  such  is  our  hope. 
All  is  well  here  below;  this  is  illusion.' 

1  On  the  question  of  evil,  see  again  the  last  chapter  of  our  book:  Of  tfie 
Supreme  End  bf  Nature. 


VII. 

OBJECTIONS   AND   DIFFICULTIES. 

LUCRETIUS,  BACON,  DESCARTES,  AND  SPINOZA. 
(Book  i.  Chaptek  v.  at  the  end.) 

IN  our  first  edition  we  had  inserted  a  chapter  entitled 
Objections  and  Difficulties.  It  has  been  pointed  out  that 
that  chapter  often  made  a  repetition  of  the  rest  of  the  dis- 
cussion, that  it  interrupted  and  complicated  it  uselessly.  We 
have  recognised  the  justice  of  this  criticism,  and  while 
preserving  under  the  title  of  Contrary/  Facts  (Chap,  v.)  all 
that  seemed  essential  to  the  course  of  the  discussion,  we  judge 
it  right  to  remit  to  the  Appendix  the  objections  having  a 
more  historical  character,  and  which  might  appear  repetitions 
or  episodes.  Of  this  kind  are  the  objections  of  Lucretius, 
Bacon,  Descartes,  and  Spinoza. 

I.  Lucretius.     Objection  of  the  Epicureans. 

According  to  Lucretius,  the  theory  of  final  causes  inverts 
the  order  of  the  facts :  it  takes  the  effect  for  the  cause.  The 
bird  flies  because  it  is  capable  of  flying ;  the  eye  sees  because 
it  is  capable  of  seeing.  Vision  and  flight  are  effects;  the 
finalists  make  them  causes.  Lucretius  thus  expresses  this 
objection : 

'  Istud  in  his  rebus  vitium  vehementer,  et  istum 
Effuj^ere  errorera,  vitareqiie  prnemeditator, 
Lumina  ne  facias  oculorum  clara  creata, 
Prospicere  ut  possimus;  et,  ut  proferre  vias 
Proceros  passiis,  ideo  fastigia  posse 
Surarum,  ac  feminum  pedibus  fundata  plieari; 
Brachia  turn  porro  validis  et  apta  lacertis 
Esse;  manusque  datas  utraque  ex  parte  ministras; 
Ut  facere  ad  vitain  possimus,  quce  foret  usus. 

474 


OBJECTIONS  AND  DIFFICULTIES.  475 

'  Caetera  de  genere  hoc  inter  qujpcumque  pretantur. 
Omnia  perversa  prrT?postera  sunt  ratione. 
Nil  ideo  quoniam  natuin  est  iu  corpore  ut  uti 
Possemus,  sed  quod  natum  est  id  procreat  usum. 
Nee  fuit  ante  videre  oculorum  lumina  nata, 
Nee  dictis  oraro  prius,  quam  liugua  creataest, 
Sed  potius  longe  linguae  praecessit  origo 
Sermonem;  multoque  creatae  sunt  prius  aures, 
Qukm  sonus  est  auditus ;  et  omnia  denique  membra 
Ante  fuere,  ut  opinor,  eorum  qu^m  foret  usus, 
Haud  igitur  potuere  utendi  crescere  causa. 

'  At  contra  conferre  manu  certamina  pugnse, 
Et  lacerare  artus,  foedareque  membra  cruore, 
Ante  fuit  multo  quam  lucida  tela  volarent. 
Et  volnus  vitare  prius  natura  coegit, 
Quam  daret  objectum  parmai  laeva  per  artem. 
Scilicet  et  fessum  corpus  mandare  quieti 
Multo  antiquius  est,  quam  lecti  mollia  strata. 
Et  sedare  sitius  prius  est,  quam  iiocula,  natum. 
Hsec  igitur  possunt  utendi  cognita  causa 
Credier,  ex  usu  quae  sunt  vitaque  reperta 
nia  quidem  seorsum  sunt  omnia,  qute  prius  ipsa 
Nata  dedere  suae  post  notitiam  utilitatis. 
Quo  genere  in  primis  sensus  et  membra  videmus. 
Quare  etiam  atque  etiam  procul  est  ut  credere  possis 
Utilitatis  ob  officium  potuisse  creari.'  i 


'But  before  all,  O  Memmias,  be  on  your  guard  against  too 
common  an  error :  believe  not  that  the  shining  orb  of  our 
eyes  has  only  been  created  to  procure  for  us  the  sight  of 
objects ;  that  these  legs  and  these  moveable  thighs  have  only 
been  reared  on  the  basis  of  the  feet  to  give  greater  extent  to 
our  paces  ;  that  the  arms,  in  fine,  have  only  been  formed  of 
solid  muscles,  and  terminated  by  the  right  and  left  hands,  to 
be  the  ministers  of  our  wants  and  of  our  preservation.  By 
such  interpretations  the  respective  order  of  effects  and  causes 
has  been  reversed.  Our  members  have  not  been  made  for 
our  use,  but  we  have  made  use  of  them  because  we  have 
found  them  made.  Sight  has  not  preceded  the  eyes ;  the 
word  has  not  been  formed  before  the  tongue  —  on  the  con- 
trary, language  has  followed  long  after  the  origin  of  the 
organ ;  the  ears  existed  long  before  sounds  were  heard,  and 
all  our  members  long  before  we  made  use  of  them.  It  is  not, 
then,  the  view  of  our  wants  that  has  produced  them. 

'  On  the  contrary,  men  fought  with  the  fist,  tore  with  the 

1  Lucretius,  lib.  iv.  822,  §  99. 


476  APPENDIX. 

liails,  were  soiled  with  blood,  long  before  the  arrows  flew 
through  the  air.  Nature  had  taucfht  men  to  avoid  wounds 
before  art  had  suspended  a  buckler  on  his  left  arm  wherewith 
to  shield  himself.  Sleep  and  rest  are  much  older  than  the 
couch  and  down.  Thirst  was  quenched  before  the  invention 
of  cups.  All  those  discoveries,  which  are  the  consequences 
of  want  and  the  fruit  of  experience,  we  may  believe  to  have 
been  made  for  our  use.  But  it  is  not  so  with  objects  whose 
use  has  only  been  found  after  their  origin,  such  as  our  mem- 
bers and  organs.  Thus  everj-thing  forbids  us  to  think  that 
they  have  been  made  for  our  use.' 

Aristotle,  recapitulating  the  same  objection,  already,  to  all 
appearance,  made  by  the  atomists,  expounds  it  in  a  manner 
still  more  exact  and  profound  than  Lucretius :  '  But  here  a 
doubt  is  raised.  Why,  it  is  said,  may  not  nature  act  without 
having  an  end,  and  without  seeking  the  best  of  things? 
Jupiter,  for  instance,  does  not  send  rain  to  develop  and 
nourish  the  grain,  but  it  rains  by  a  necessary  law;  for  in 
rising,  the  vapour  must  grow  cool,  and  the  cooled  vapour 
becoming  water,  must  necessarily  fall.  But  if,  this  phenom- 
enon taking  place,  the  wheat  profits  by  it  to  germinate  and 
grow,  it  is  a  simple  accident.  And  so  again,  if  the  grain 
which  some  one  has  put  into  the  barn  is  destroyed  in  conse- 
quence of  rain,  it  does  not  rain  apparent!}'  in  order  to  rot 
the  grain,  and  it  is  a  simple  accident  if  it  be  lost.  What 
hinders  us  from  saying  as  well,  that  in  nature  the  bodily 
organs  themselves  are  subject  to  the  same  law,  and  that  the 
teeth,  for  instance,  necessarily  grow  —  those  in  front  incisive 
and  capable  of  tearing  food,  and  the  molars  large  and  fitted 
for  grinding  it,  although  it  is  not  in  order  to  this  function 
that  they  have  been  made,  and  that  this  is  only  a  simple 
coincidence  ?  What  hinders  us  from  making  the  same  re- 
mark for  all  the  organs  where  there  seems  to  be  an  end  and 
a  special  destination  ?  ^ 

It  is  easy  to  see  that  Lucretius  has  only  reproduced  the 
objection  of  Aristotle,  while  weakening  it  and  adding  to  it 
unphilosophical  considerations.  For  to  suppose,  for  instance, 
an  interval  between  the  origin  of  the  organs  and  their  use  is 
very  unreasonable.     It  is  evident  that  the  heart  behoved  to 

1  Physics,  lib.  ii.  chap,  viii.,  Berlin  edition,  p.  li'S,  B. 


OBJECTIONS  AND   DIFFICULTIES.  477 

beat  and  the  lungs  to  breathe  as  soon  as  they  were  produced ; 
the  mouth  behoved  to  imbibe  nourishment,  and  the  members 
to  take  it,  ahnost  immediately  after  birth,  otherwise  the  animal 
would  not  have  lived.  Besides,  Lucretius  improperly  com- 
pares the  use  of  the  organs  to  artificial  inventions,  which  are 
phenomena  of  quite  a  different  kind.  It  is  not  at  all  in  the 
same  way  that  man  makes  use  of  the  eye  for  seeing  and  of 
a  stick  for  walking.  The  first  is  natural,  the  second  artificial. 
Nobody  maintains  that  the  use  of  the  organs  is  of  the  same 
kind  as  that  of  arms,  furniture,  or  utensils  of  human  industry. 
There  is,  on  the  contrary,  a  radical  difference,  entirely  to  the 
advantage  of  final  causes.  In  the  second  case,  in  effect,  it  is 
man  who  himself  applies  to  his  use  all  the  objects  of  nature ; 
but  in  that,  it  is  he  who  proposes  an  end  to  himself,  and  one 
may  hesitate  to  say  that  nature  has  prepared  these  things  for 
his  use  that  he  ma}^  derive  benefit  from  them.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  use  of  the  organs  is  entirely  natural.  It  is  false  and 
absurd  to  suppose  that  man,  perceiving  that  the  legs  were 
good  for  walking,  began  to  walk  ;  or  perceiving  that  the  eyes 
were  capable  of  seeing,  began  to  see.  There  are  even  certain 
usages  of  our  active  life  which  have  long  appeared  artificial 
results  of  our  will,  and  which  it  is  now  agreed  to  consider 
as  natural  and  spontaneous.  Such  are,  for  instance,  language 
and  society.  Nobody  now  any  longer  believes  that  man 
invented  language  as  he  invented  the  plough.  Those  who 
said  that  language  is  necessary  to  explain  the  invention  of 
language  were  right  if  they  spoke  of  a  thought-out  invention ; 
but  it  is  not  so.  In  all  probability  man  has  always  spoken, 
as  he  has  always  lived  in  society.  Thus  this  spontaneous 
and  necessary  nse  of  our  organs  and  faculties  cannot  be  com- 
pared to  the  artificial  use  of  the  objects  of  nature.  The 
argument  of  Lucretius,  which  rests  on  this  comparison,  would 
therefore  fall  with  it.  For  what  does  he  say  ?  That  if  the 
organs  had  been  created  for  an  end,  that  end  must  have 
already  preceded  the  production  of  the  organs,  since,  being  the 
cause  of  that  production,  it  ought  as  such  to  pre-exist.  Thus 
men  had  already  fought  before  creating  arms  for  combat ;  so 
it  seems  that>  for  Lucretius,  vision  must  have  already  existed 
somewhere  before  eyes  were  invented  for  seeing :  that  would 
only  be   true   if  man    himself  invented    his  eyes,  which   is 


478  APPENDIX. 

absurd,  or  only  invented  the  use  of  them,  which  is  false. 
Besides,  we  can  retort  against  Lucretius  the  principle  he 
employs,  for  he  seems  to  say  that  man  has  discovered  the 
use  of  his  eyes  and  his  legs  as  he  has  discovered  the  use  of 
arms  or  beds.  But  then  he  must  in  the  first,  as  in  the  second 
case,  have  found  a  model  ;  therefore,  on  his  own  hypothesis, 
sight  must  have  preceded  the  eyes,  and  walking  have  preceded 
the  legs.  But,  as  that  is  absurd,  it  follows  that  the  use  of 
the  eyes  and  legs  is  natural  and  not  artificial. 

Disengaging  the  objection  of  Lucretius  from  the  complica- 
tions which  obscure  and  enfeeble  it,  there  simply  remains  as 
the  knot  of  the  objection  this  fundamental  difficulty,  that  the 
doctrine  of  the  final  cause  inverts  cause  and  effect  —  omnia 
perversa prcepostera  sunt  ratioyie — which  Spinoza  has  expressed 
in  these  terms:  'The  first  defect  of  the  doctrine  of  final 
causes  is  to  consider  as  cause  what  is  effect,  and  vice  versd.''  ^ 
But  who  does  not  see  that  this  objection  is  none  other  than 
the  very  question  itself?  For,  if  there  are  final  causes,  the 
effect  is  no  longer  merely  an  effect,  it  is  also  a  cause  (at  least 
so  far  as  it  is  represented  a  priori  in  the  efficient  cause). 
The  question,  then,  is  just  this,  whether  there  are  not  effects 
which  are  at  the  same  time  causes ;  and  that  cannot  be  put 
forth  as  an  objection  which  is  precisely  the  object  of  debate. 
If  mechanism  -is  right,  doubtless  we  shall  have  taken  the 
effect  for  the  cause ;  but  if  we  are  right,  it  is  mechanism 
itself  that  will  have  done  so.  The  objection,  then,  holds  on 
both  sides,  or  rather  it  holds  on  neither,  for  in  either  case  it 
supposes  what  is  disputed.  In  reality  it  is  no  longer  an 
objection,  but  a  doctrine,  —  the  doctrine  of  mechanism,  which 
we  have  thoroughly  examined  (see  our  chapter :  Mechanism 
and  Finality^,  and  to  which  we  do  not  need  to  revert. 

Will  it  be  said  that  it  implies  contradiction  that  an  effect 
be  a  cause  ?  and  that  a  thing  cannot  act  before  existing  ? 
This  is  what  we  say  ourselves,  and  therefore  it  is  that  we 


"  EiJiiqve,  Ire  part.  Appendix.  Bnffon  has  also  said  :  '  Those  who  believe 
they  can  answer  these  questions  by  final  causes  do  not  perceive  that  they  take 
the  effect  for  the  cause  '  (History  of  Animals,  oh.  1).  Descartes  says,  likewise  : 
'  I  mean  to  explain  effects  by  causes,  and  not  causes  by  effects '  (Principes,  iii. 
4). 


OBJECTIONS  AND   DIFFICULTIES.  479 

reduce  finalit}^  to  the  foresight  of  the  end.  It  is  not  the 
effect  itself  that  is  the  cause  ;  it  is  the  idea  of  the  effect.  But 
this  idea,  in  so  far  as  it  might  determine  the  efficient  cause, 
is  anterior  to  its  action.  The  objection  thus  woukl  only 
hold  against  the  hypothesis  of  an  unintelligent  and  uncon- 
scious finality,  which  should  be  determined  beforehand  by 
an  effect  not  existing  and  not  represented.  It  would,  there- 
fore, only  hold  against  a  certain  manner  of  understanding 
finality  which  is  not  ours,  and  which  we  have  examined  in 
our  second  part  (see  our  chapter :  Instinctive  Finalitif)  ;  but 
it  is  of  no  avail  against  the  hypothesis  of  finality  considered 
in  itself. 

Besides,  this  objection  arises  from  not  perceiving  where  is 
the  real  point  of  the  question.  In  effect,  it  goes  without 
saying  that,  a  cause  being  given,  such  an  effect  must  follow. 
'  Such  an  organ,  such  a  function.'  But  the  question  is,  how 
such  an  organ  is  found  given.  If  we  assume  the  existence  of 
the  eye,  sight  follows.  But  how  comes  it  that  the  eye  exists? 
There  is  the  problem.  All  function  is  the  solution  of  a 
problem,  which  consists  in  harmonizing  the  internal  condi- 
tions of  the  organism  with  the  external  conditions  of  the 
physical  medium.  The  harmony  once  found,  the  effect  fol- 
lows as  a  thing  of  course ;  but  how  the  harmony  has  come 
about  is  not  thereby  resolved,  but  remains  to  be  sought.  The 
objection,  then,  does  not  occupy  the  true  point  of  view,  it  does 
not  touch  the  true  problem. 

II.  Bacon.      The  sciences  and  final  causes. 

'  The  habit  of  seeking  final  causes  in  physics,'  says  Bacon, 
'has  expelled  and,  as  it  were,  banished  from  it  the  physical 
causes.  It  has  brought  it  about  that  men,  reposing  in  ap- 
pearances, have  not  given  themselves  to  search  for  real  causes. 
In  effect,  if,  to  explain  certain  arrangements  and  conforma- 
tions of  the  human  body,  it  be  said  that  the  eyelids,  with  the 
hairs  which  cover  them,  are  like  a  hedge  for  the  eyes ;  or 
that  the  hardness  of  the  skin  on  animals  is  intended  to  pre- 
serve them  from  heat  or  cold ;  or  that  the  bones  are  like  so 
many  columns  or  beams  which  nature  has  raised  to  serve  to 
support  the  human  body  ;  or,  again,  that  trees  put  forth  leaves 
in  order  to  be  less  exposed  to  the  sun  or  the  w-'-id ;  that  the 
clouds  are  carried  towards  the  upper  region  in  crder  to  water 


480  APPENDIX. 

the  earth  by  showers ;  or,  in  fine,  that  the  earth  has  been  con- 
densed and  consolidated  in  order  tliat  it  may  serve  as  a  firm 
abode,  a  basis  for  animals,  all  explanations  of  this  kind  are 
like  those  sea-lampreys  which,  as  certain  navigators  have 
imagined,  fasten  upon  vessels  and  stop  them.  .  .  .  They  have 
caused  the  investigation  of  physical  causes  to  be  long  neg- 
lected ;  moreover,  the  philosophy  of  Democritus  and  of  those 
contemplative  authors  who  have  discarded  God  from  the 
system  of  the  world,  appears  to  us,  as  regards  physical  causes, 
to  have  more  solidity  than  those  of  Plato  and  Aristotle.'  ^ 

From  this  objection  of  Bacon  is  dated  and  has  originated 
the  war  which  men  of  science  since  then  have  not  ceased  to 
wage  against  final  causes.  But  this  warfare  arises  from  a 
mistake.  We  have  already  said  that  men  of  science  are  alone 
judges  of  the  method  which  it  is  suitable  to  employ  in  the 
sciences.  If  they  have  sufficiently  verified  by  experience  that 
final  causes  deceive  more  than  they  serve  them ;  if  they  have, 
in  fact,  the  troublesome  effect  of  turning  aside  the  mind  from 
the  investigation  of  physical  causes,  and  of  thus  encouraging 
a  slothful  philosophy,  we  at  least  will  not  dispute  this  right 
with  them.  The  objection  of  Bacon  may  have  had  a  historical 
basis,  and  may,  to  a  certain  extent,  have  it  still.  It  might  be 
shown  that  in  certain  cases  —  for  instance,  in  the  case  so  often 
quoted  of  the  valves  of  the  heart  —  the  final  cause  has  guided 
to  the  physical  cause.  One  might  say  with  Schopenhauer, 
that,  in  physiology,  the  final  cause  is  often  more  interesting 
than  the  physical.^  But  yet,  once  more,  this  is  a  question  for 
men  of  science  to  discuss.  Let  them  settle  it  as  they  think 
best ;  let  them  absolutely  exclude  teleological  investigations, 
or  use  them  to  a  certain  extent,  it  is  their  affair.  Their  func- 
tion is  to  discover  facts  and  laws.  When  they  have  observed 
true  facts  and  discovered  true  laws,  they  have  done  their 
work,  and  there  is  nothing  fLirther  to  be  asked  of  them. 

But  if,  meanwhile,  by  abstaining  from  final  causes,  they 
think  they  have  actually  excluded  and  suppressed  this  notion 
from  the  human  mind,  they  change  the  question.  From  a 
questioa  of  logic  and  method,  they  pass  without  hesitation  to 

1  Bacon,  De  Dir/nitate  Scievtiannn,  h.  iii.  c.  iv. 

-  Die  Welt  als  Wille,  t.  ii.  chap.  2G.  For  iustauce,  he  says  :  '  It  is  more  in- 
teresting to  know  why  the  blood  circulates  than  to  know  how  it  circulates.' 


OBJECTIONS   AND   DIFFICULTIES.  481 

a  nieta[)hysical  and  fundamental  question ;  and  these  are  two 
profoundly  different  points  of  view.  Because  the  first  is  de- 
termined in  one  way,  it  by  no  means  follows  that  the  second 
is  so  in  the  same  way  as  well.  Because  you  remove  final 
•causes  from  your  methods,  does  it  follow  that  there  are  none  ? 
When  Bacon  removed  final  causes  from  physics,  in  order  to 
remit  them  to  metaphysics,  it  was  no  vain  subterfuge,  but  a 
•distinction  as  solid  as  profound.  The  physicist  seeks  for  the 
physical  and  concrete  conditions  of  phenomena ;  the  meta- 
phvsician  seeks  their  intellectual  signification.  But  the  sec- 
ond of  these  points  of  view  is  in  no  way  excluded  by  the 
first ;  and  after  having  explained  how  things  happen,  it  is 
still  competent  to  ask  why  they  happen  thus.  The  question 
of  the  how  does  not  exclude  that  of  the  why,  and  leaves  iv; 
entirely  open. 

When  scientists,  after  Kdving  eliminated  final  causes  from 
their  methods  (which  they  have  a  right  to  do),  proceed  to 
banish  them  from  reality  itself,  they  do  not  see  that  they  are 
then  no  longer  speaking  as  scientists,  but  as  philosophers ; 
and  they  do  not  distinguish  these  two  parts.  They  attribute 
to  themselves  the  same  infallibility  as  philosophers  which  they 
liave  as  scientists ;  they  believe  that  it  is  science  that  pro- 
nounces by  their  mouth,  while  it  is  only  free  speculation. 
This  distinction  is  very  important,  for  it  removes  many 
equivocations  and  mistakes.  A  scientist,  however  bound  he 
may  be  by  the  severities  of  the  scientific  method,  yet  cannot 
escape  the  temptation  to  think,  to  reflect  on  the  phenomena 
whoae  laws  he  has  discovered.  Like  other  philosophers,  he 
gives  himself  up  to  reasonings,  inductions,  analyses,  — to  con- 
ceptions no  longer  belonging  to  the  domain  of  experience, 
but  which  are  the  work  of  thought  operating  on  the  data  of 
experience.  It  is  clearly  his  right,  and  no  one  will  complain 
that  scientists  should  be  at  the  same  time  philosophers ;  it 
may  even  be  thought  that  they  are  not  so  enough.  But 
forthwith  to  attribute  to  these  personal  interpretations  the 
authority  which  attaches  to  science  itself,  is  to  commit 
the  same  error,  the  same  abuse  of  power,  as  that  of  the 
priests  of  the  Middle  Ages,  Avho  availed  themselves  of  the 
respect  due  to  religion  to  cover  all  the  acts  of  the  temporal 
power. 


482  APPENDIX. 

III.  Descartes.     The  ignorance  of  ends. 

Descartes,  like  Bacon,  and  even  more  than  he,  has  shown 
hhnself  opposed  to  final  causes,  for  Bacon  only  removed  them 
from  physics  to  relegate  them  to  metaphysics.  Descartes,  on 
the  other  hand,  seems  to  exclude  them  at  once  from  meta- 
physics and  from  physics,  or  at  least  he  refuses  to  make  use 
of  them  in  either  of  these  two  sciences.  It  is  not  that  he 
denies  the  existence  of  ends  in  nature,  but  he  thinks  that  we 
cannot  know  them,  because  of  the  infirmity  of  our  mind. 
Hence  this  objection,  so  often  reproduced  by  able  men, 
namely,  that  it  belongs  not  to  us  to  sound  the  intentions  of 
the  Creator. 

We  ought  always,  he  says,  to  keep  before  our  eyes  '  that 
the  capacity  of  our  mind  is  very  mediocre,  and  not  to  pre- 
sume too  much  on  ourselves,  as  it  seems  we  would  do  were 
we  to  persuade  ourselves  that  it  is  only  for  our  use  that  God 
has  created  all  things,  or  even,  indeed,  if  we  pretended  to  be 
able  to  know  by  the  force  of  our  mitid  what  are  the  ends  fo"^ 
u'hich  He  has  created  them.''  ^ 

In  this  passage,  Descartes  mingles  two  distinct  objections, 
—  one  directed  against  the  prejudice  which  would  make  man 
the  last  end  of  the  creation ;  the  other  which  is  founded  on 
the  disproportion  between  the  powers  of  the  human  and  the 
divine  mind,  and  on  ignorance  of  ends. 

This  objection,  as  it  seems  to  us,  rests  on  an  easily  disen- 
tangled confusion  between  absolute  and  relative  ends.  If  even 
it  were  not  known  to  what  end  God  has  created  all  things,  — 
that  is,  when  their  final  destination  was  unknown,  —  it  would 
not  follow  that  Ave  could  not  know  in  any  given  being  the 
relation  of  means  to  ends.  Suppose  I  do  not  know  to  what 
end  God  has  given  sight  to  the  animals,  does  it  follow  that  I 
am  forbidden  to  affirm  that  the  eye  has  been  made  for  seeing  ? 
Because  I  do  not  know  why  God  has  willed  that  there  should 
be  vegetables,  does  it  follow  that  I  cannot  recognise  the  rela- 
tion of  correspondence  and  adaptation  which  is  to  be  seen 
between  their  parts?  The  same  objection  rests  upon  yet 
another  confusion,  —  made,  too,  by  all  the  philosophers  before 
Kant,  — that  of  external  and  internal  finality .^     No  doubt,  I 

1  Principes  de  philosophie,  iii.  2.    See  also  in  the  Meditations,  iv. 

2  See  above,  p.  192. 


0B7i:CTI0NS   AND   DIFFICULTIES.  483 

can  affirm  nothing  with  exactness  regarding  external  finality, 
because  it  is  not  written  in  the  constitution  of  the  being  itself. 
But  even  if  I  could  not  say  why  God  has  made  vipers,  it 
would  not  follow  that  the  internal  organization  of  the  viper 
does  not  manifest  relations  of  adaptation,  which  I  am  entitled 
to  call  relations  of  finality. 

It  is  remarkable  that  a  votary  of  empiricism  and  Epicurean- 
ism, Gassendi,  has  defended  the  principle  of  final  causes 
against  Descartes.  '  You  say,'  he  answers  Descartes,  '  that  it 
does  not  seem  to  you  that  you  could  investigate  and  under- 
take to  discover,  without  rashness,  the  ends  of  God.  But 
although  that  may  be  true,  if  you  mean  to  speak  of  ends  that 
God  has  willed  to  be  hidden,  still  it  cannot  be  the  case  with 
those  which  He  has,  as  it  were,  exposed  to  the  view  of  all 
the  world,  and  which  are  discovered  without  much  labour.'  ^ 
Then,  instancing  the  marvellous  arrangement  of  the  valves 
of  the  heart,  he  asks  why  'it  should  not  be  permitted  to 
•admire  this  wonderful  action  and  that  ineffable  Providence 
which  has  so  conveniently  arranged  these  little  doors  at  the 
■entrance  of  these  concavities  .  .  .  and  which  has  not  only 
arranged  these  things  conformably  to  their  end,  but  even  all 
that  we  see  most  admirable  in  the  universe.' 

Pressed  by  this  objection,  Descartes  is  indeed  obliged  to 
grant  the  reality  of  it,  and  upon  the  pain  of  assuming  against 
Gassendi  himself  his  part  of  Epicurean,  he  must  consent  to 
recognise  '  that  a  work  supposes  a  worker.'  Only  he  thinks 
to  escape  the  objection  by  a  sort  of  evasion,  inadmissible  in 
good  philosophy,  namely,  that  the  preceding  argument  is 
founded  on  the  efficient,  not  on  the  final  cause.  This  is  a 
manifest  confusion.  No  doubt,  when  we  say  the  work  sup- 
poses a  worker,  we  pass  from  the  effect  to  the  efficient  cause ; 
it  is  even  merely  a  tautology,  for  he  who  says  work  says  a 
thing  made  by  a  worker.  But  the  stress  of  the  argument  just 
consists  in  affirming  that  such  a  thing  is  a  work  (^opus},  and 
not  merely  a  simple  effect ;  and  this  we  can  only  do  by  com- 
paring means  with  ends ;  consequently,  by  the  principle  of 
final  causes.  If  the  contemplation  of  ends  is  forbidden  us, 
the  consideration  of  means  is  equally  so.  The  agreement  of 
the  one  with  the  other  has  no  longer  any  significance,  and 

1  Gassendi,  Objections  a  la  4*  meditation  (edit.  Cousiu,  t.  11.  p.  179). 


484  APPENDIX. 

nothing  warrants  us  to  consider  the  work  as  a  work  of  wisdom, 
and  consequently  to  conclude  the  existence  of  a  worker.  No 
doubt  the  world  still  remains  as  an  effect  which  requires  a 
cause ;  but  it  is  enough  for  us  to  know  that  this  cause  is 
powerful,  without  deciding  whether  it  is  wise.  Consequently 
there  is  no  middle  way  for  Descartes:  he  must  either 
permit  the  consideration  of  the  final  cause,  or  renounce,  as 
Gassendi  objects  to  him,  the  recognition  of  Providence  in 
nature. 

Another  contemporary  of  Descartes,  eminent  in  the  physical 
sciences,  has  replied  very  justly  and  precisely  to  the  objection 
of  Descartes.     We  mean  Robert  Boyle. 

'Suppose  that  a  peasant,  entering  in  broad  daylight  the 
garden  of  a  famous  mathematician,  finds  there  one  of  those 
curious  gnomonic  instruments  which  indicate  the  position  of 
the  sun  in  the  zodiac,  its  declination  from  the  equator,  the 
day  of  the  month,  the  length  of  the  day,  etc.  etc. ;  it  would, 
no  doubt,  be  a  great  presumption  on  his  part,  ignorant  alike 
of  mathematical  science  and  of  the  intentions  of  the  artist, 
to  believe  himself  capable  of  discovering  all  the  ends  in  view 
of  which  this  machine,  so  curiously  wrought,  has  been  con- 
structed ;  but  when  he  remarks  that  it  is  furnished  with  an 
index,  with  lines  and  horary  numbers,  in  short,  with  all  that 
constitutes  a  sun-dial,  and  sees  successively  the  shadow  of  the 
index  mark  in  succession  the  hour  of  the  day,  there  would  be 
on  his  part  as  little  presumption  as  error  in  concluding  that 
this  instrument,  whatever  may  be  its  other  uses,  is  certainly  a 
dial  made  to  show  the  hours.'  ^ 

IV.  Spinoza,  a.  The  ignorance  of  causes,  h.  The  less  per- 
fect taken  for  the  more  perfect,  c.  The  motive  of  the  creation. 
d.  The  final  cause  in  man. 

Of  all  philosophers,  the  one  who  has  maintained  the  most 
learned  and  profound  contest  against  the  doctrine  of  final 
causes  is  Spinoza.  Let  us  single  out  from  that  discussion 
the  essential  points  of  the  debate. 

1st,  It  is  the  ignorance  of  causes  that  has  evoked  the 
hypothesis  of  final  causes. 

1  Boyle,  Letter  on  Final  Causes.  J.  J.  Rousseau,  in  the  Emile,  replies  to  tho 
Mme  objection  nearly  in  the  same  manner  :  '  I  judge  of  the  order  of  the  world, 
although  I  kuow  not  its  end.* 


I 


OBJECTIONS  AND  DIFFICULTIES,  485 

2(.l,  Tills  hypothesis  not  only  takes  the  effect  for  the  cause, 
as  Lucretius  has  already  said,  but  the  less  perfect  for  the  more 
perfect. 

3d,  It  supposes  a  poor  and  indigent  God,  who  has  need  of 
the  world  to  enjoy  His  glory. 

4tli,  EAen  in  man,  where  it  appears  most  warranted,  it  still 
confounds  the  effect  Avith  the  cause. 

a.  "  All  must  agree  that  men  are  born  ignorant  of  causes, 
and  that  a  universal  appetite,  of  which  they  are  conscious, 
impels  them  to  seek  for  what  is  useful  to  them.  A  first  con- 
sequence of  this  principle  is,  that  men  believe  themselves 
free.  It  results  from  it,  in  the  second  place,  that  men  always 
act  in  order  to  an  end,  namely,  their  own  convenience  ;  whence 
it  comes  that  for  all  possible  actions  they  never  seek  to  know 
any  but  the  final  causes,  and  as  soon  as  they  know  them, 
they  remain  at  rest,  having  no  longer  in  the  mind  any  motive 
for  uncertainty.  .  .  .  Thus,  when  our  adversaries  consider 
the  economy  of  the  human 'body,  they  fall  into  a  stupid 
amazement,  and  as  they  know  not  the  causes  of  so  marvellous 
an  art,  they  conclude  that  it  is  not  mechanical  laws,  but  a 
divine  and  supernatural  industry  that  has  formed  this  work, 
and  has  arranged  the  parts  of  it  so  as  not  to  injure  each  other. 
This  is  why  every  one  that  seeks  the  true  causes  of  miracles, 
and  strives  to  comprehend  natural  things  as  a  philosopher,  in 
place  of  admiring  them  as  a  stupid  man,  is  at  once  regarded 
as  impious.' 

We  see  that  Spinoza  explains  the  belief  in  final  causes  as 
he  explains  the  belief  in  liberty,  by  ignorance  of  causes.  When 
we  act  without  knowing  what  determines  us  to  act,  we 
think  ourselves  the  masters  of  our  actions,  and  we  say  that 
we  act  freely.  So  when  we  do  not  know  how  nature  acts, 
we  suppose  that  it  acts  voluntarily,  and  in  order  to  be  useful 
to  us. 

Leaving  aside  human  utility,  which  is  by  no  means,  as  we 
have  seen,  an  essential  element  of  the  notion  of  final  cause, 
we  allege  that  there  is  no  equivalence  between  these  two 
terras,  ignorance  of  causes  and  finality.  In  effect,  every,  one 
knows  that  there  is  nothing  more  unknown  than  meteoro- 
logical phenomena  —  science  has  made  little  progress  regarding 
their  causes  and  laws  ;  j-et  this  is  precisely  the  domain  where 


486  APPENDIX. 

the  final  cause  appears  most  absent  (not  for  the  vulgar,  per- 
haps, but  for  the  philosopher).  The  causes  of  the  shooting 
stars  have  been  long  unknown  —  they  are  nearly  so  still ;  yet 
no  philosopher  has  attached  them  to  a  system  of  finality. 
Ignorance  can  lead  to  superstition,  and  sees  miracles  every- 
where. But  we  have  said  already,  and  cannot  too  often 
repeat,  that  final  causes  are  not  miracles ;  and  it  is  a  confusion 
far  from  philosophical  to  assimilate  the  doctrine  of  final  causes 
with  that  of  supernatural  interventions  (see  Appendix  V.). 
For  the  rest,  this  is  a  point  to  which  we  will  return.  Let  it 
suffice  us  to  say,  that  there  are  thousands  of  phenomena  whose 
causes  are  unknown,  and  which  are  by  no  means,  therefore, 
given  as  examples  of  finality.  On  the  other  hand,  nothing  is 
better  known  than  the  laws  of  sight ;  optics  and  physiology 
exj)lain  to  us  exactly  how  it  takes  j)lace,  and  yet  it  is  just 
here  that  finality  shines  forth.  The  objection  of  Spinoza  rests 
upon  the  principle,  already  refuted,  that  physical  causes 
exclude  final  causes,  or  reciprocally  :  this  is  what  scientists 
believe.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  as  we  have  seen,  these  two 
kinds  of  causes  can  and  should  be  reconciled,  the  knowledge 
of  physical  causes  does  not  exclude  final  causes ;  and,  recip- 
rocally, the  hypothesis  of  final  causes  is  not  bound  up  with 
ignorance  of  physical  causes. 

h.  '  The  defect  of  this  doctrine,'  says  Spinoza  again,  '  is  tc 
regard  as  cause  what  is  effect,  and,  reciprocally,  to  take  what 
is  anterior  for  what  is  posterior  '  (objection  of  Lucretius,  see 
above,  I.)  ;  '  in  fine,  it  reduces  themore  perfect  to  the  less  perfect. 
In  effect,  to  say  nothing  of  the  first  two  points,  which  are 
evident  by  themselves,  it  results  from  the  propositions  (xxi., 
xxii.,  xxiii.)  that  the  most  perfect  effect  is  that  which  is  pro- 
duced immediately  by  God,  and  that  an  effect  becomes  more 
and  more  imperfect  in  proportion  as  its  production  supposes 
a  greater  number  of  intermediate  causes.  But  if  the  things 
which  God  immediately  produces  were  made  in  order  to 
attain  an  end,  it  would  follow  that  those  which  God  produces 
last  would  be  the  most  perfect  of  all,  the  others  having  been 
made  in  order  to  these.' 

This  second  objection  belongs  to  the  foundation  of  the 
doctrine  of  Spinoza.  According  to  him,  the  type  of  perfection 
is  God.     He  defines  Him,  with  Descartes,  as  the  infinitely 


OBJECTIONS  AND   DIFFICULTIES.  487 

perfect  being.  Like  Descartes,  too,  he  allows  more  perfection 
or  reality  to  substance  than  to  attribute,  to  the  attribute  than 
to  the  modes ;  and  among  the  modes,  more  perfection  to  the 
simjjle  modes  derived  immediately  from  the  attributes,  than  to 
the  complex  modes  which  result  from  these  simple  modes. 
But  what  are  called  e7ids  or  fijiai  causes  are  effects  —  for  in- 
stance, sight,  in  relation  to  the  eye ;  life,  Avith  reference  to 
the  organized  being:  these  are,  therefore,  complex  modes, 
resulting  from  the  combination  of  certain  motions,  which  are 
the  simple  modes.  In  the  system  of  final  causes,  the  end  is 
superior  to  the  means,  consequently  the  composite  to  the 
component  elements,  the  ulterior  to  the  anterior.  This  is 
contrary  to  the  true  order,  according  to  Spinoza. 

This  objection,  though  one  dare  hardly  say  it  of  so  great 
a  logician,  is  nothing  but  a  petitio  princlpii.  No  doubt,  if 
Spinoza  is  right,  if  there  are  only  efficient  and  not  final  causes, 
the  order  of  perfection  goes  from  cause  to  effect,  that  is, 
descending.  But  if  there  are  final  causes,  the  order  of  perfec- 
tion will  be  inverse,  and  will  go  from  low  to  high,  from  effect 
to  cause  —  in  a  word,  will  be  ascending.  But  the  question 
is,  just  whether  this  order  is  ascending  or  descending.  To 
lay  down  in  principle  that  it  must  be  descending,  is  to  lay 
do>vn  what  is  in  question.  But,.3piiioza  will  say,  what  is 
remote  from  God  is  necessarily  less  perfect  than  what  is 
nearer  Him.  Is  it  not  evident  that  this  is  still  the  question? 
If  there  are  final  causes,  each  end  is  a  degree  of  perfection 
attained  by  nature,  which  rises  gradually  from  the  less  to  the 
more  perfect.  In  this  respect  each  of  these  degrees  is,  if  you 
will,  farther  from  God  considered  as  cause,  but  it  is  nearer 
Him  if  we  consider  Him  as  end.  If  we  imagine  the  creation 
as  a  vast  circulus,  which  goes  from  the  perfect  to  the  perfect, 
or  from  God  to  God,  traversing  all  the  possible  degrees  of 
finite  existence,  one  cannot  say  that  there  is  necessarily  more 
perfection  in  the  anterior  than  in  the  ulterior,  for  if  power  is 
on  the  one  side,  goodness  is  on  the  other.  That  an  effect 
may  be  produced,  no  doubt  there  must  be  anterior  causes,  to 
which  God  communicates  power ;  they  are,  therefore,  in  this 
more  perfect  than  their  effects,  since  they  contain  them.  But 
that  these  powers  may  act,  they  must  be  determined  by  good- 
ness to  produce  certain  effects  rather  than  others:    in  this 


488  APPENDIX. 

respect  the  effect  is  better  than  the  cause,  since  it  determines 
its  action. 

Such  an  objection  would  only  have  all  its  force  by  sup- 
posing a  nature  existing  of  itself,  without  a  supreme  cause  — 
a  nature  which,  by  its  own  powers,  and  without  being  directed 
in  its  movement,  should  rise  spontaneously  from  the  less  to 
the  more  perfect  —  a  nature  which,  consequently,  must  have 
set  out  from  the  minimum  of  existence  (equivalent  to  0)  to 
seek  a  maximum  of  existence  (equivalent  to  the  absolute). 
Such  a  nature,  in  effect,  would  come  under  the  objection  of 
Spinoza  ;  ^  but  such  a  hypothesis  is  not  ours,  and  is  in  no  way 
bound  up  with  the  doctrine  of  final  causes. 

c.  '  Add  that  this  doctrine  destroys  the  perfection  of  God ; 
for  if  God  acts  for  an  end.  He  necessarily  desires  something 
which  He  lacks.  And  although  theologians  and  metaphy- 
sicians distinguish  between  an  end  of  indigence  and  an  end  of 
assimilation,  they  yet  avow  that  God  has  made  all  for  Him- 
self, not  for  the  things  He  was  to  create,  seeing  that  it  was 
impossible  to  allege,  before  creation,  any  other  end  for  the 
action  of  God  than  God  Himself;  and  in  this  way  they  are 
forced  to  admit  that  all  the  objects  whicli  God  has  set  before 
Himself,  by  arranging  certain  means  to  attain  them,  God  has 
at  some  time  lacked,  and  has  desired  to  possess  them  —  a 
necessary  consequence  of  their  principles.' 

This  objection  greatly  transcends  the  sphere  of  our  present 
discussion.  The  only  point  we  have  hitherto  had  to  discuss 
IS  this :  Are  there  final  causes  in  nature  ?  As  to  i\\e  primary 
cause  of  finality,  and  as  to  the  last  end  of  nature,  we  are 
warranted  at  present  to  dismiss  these  two  problems.  Because 
we  might  not  know  the  supreme  end  of  nature  (or  the  motive 
of  creation),  it  would  not  follow  that  we  did  not  know  the 
secondary  ends ;  and  though  we  might  not  know  the  first 
cause  of  finality,  it  would  not  follow  that  there  was  no  finality. 
We  shall  elsewhere  meet  these  questions  again  (see  our  last 
chapter :  The  Supreme  End  of  Nature'),  but  they  do  not  bear 
on  that  which  is  the  present  point  of  discussion. 

Let  it  suffice  us  to  say  that  the  difficulty  raised  by  Spinoza 
not  only  bears  against  the  doctrine  of  final  causes,  but  against 

1  This  hypothesis  is  that  of  Hegel,  and  that  of  the  Pythagoreans  and  of 
Leiisippus  ;  ef  ot€Au>i'  to.  rexeiorepa,  says  Aristotlo  (Metaph.  xvi.  5). 


OBJECTIONS  AND  DIFFICULTIES.  489 

l}is  own  doctrine ;  because,  for  whatever  reason,  God  lias 
come  forth  from  Himself  us  well  in  pantheism  as  in  creation- 
ism  or  intentionalism.  Even  by  the  doctrine  of  Spinoza,  God 
would  not  therefore  be  perfect  in  Himself,  since  He  needed 
self-development.  The  diflBculty  of  the  co-existence  of  the 
finite  and  the  infinite  exists  in  every  doctrine  without  excep- 
tion that  admits  both,  which  the  Spinozists  do  as  well  as  we. 
Schelling  asked  Hegel  why  the  Idea  had  thought  of  going 
out  of  itself,  and  if  it  was  wearied  of  the  abstract  state  that 
it  decided  to  pass  to  the  concrete ;  and  even  he,  in  his  last 
philosophy,  when  he  admits  a  pure  will  that  decays,  tells  us 
nothing  much  more  satisfactory.  As  to  the  hypothesis  tliat 
would  explain  nature  as  a  power  primordially  undetermined, 
and  which  should  progressively  be  developed  by  passing  into 
action,  we  have  just  seen  that  it  is  precisely  this  hypothesis 
which  lies  open  to  the  preceding  objection. 

d.  '  That  species  of  cause  called  final  is  nothing  else  than 
the  human  appetite,  in  so  far  as  it  is  regarded  as  the  principle, 
or  the  principal  cause  of  a  certain  thing.  For  instance,  when 
we  say  that  the  final  cause  of  a  house  is  to  provide  a  dwelling, 
we  mean  thereby  nothing  more  than  this,  that  man,  having 
represented  to  Jiimself  the  advantages  of  the  domestic  life,  has 
had  the  desire  to  build  a  house.  Thus,  then,  this  final  cause 
is  nothing  more  than  the  particular  desire  just  mentioned, 
which  is  indeed  the  efficient  cause  of  the  house  ;  and  this  is 
for  men  the  primary  cause,  for  they  are  in  common  ignorant 
of  the  causes  of  their  appetites.' 

This  analysis  of  the  final  cause  contains,  in  fact,  nothing 
that  really  contradicts  it.  No  one  maintains  that  the  house 
itself  as  house  is  the  cause  of  the  structure.  No  one  denies 
that  the  final  cause  may  be  reduced  to  the  efficient  cause, 
if  in  the  efficient  cause  itself  the  final  cause  be  introduced, 
namely,  the  desire  and  idea,  in  other  words,  the  anticipation 
of  the  effect ;  and  it  matters  little  whether  the  cause,  thus 
analyzed  into  its  elements,  is  called  final  or  efficient.  The 
only  question  is,  whether  a  house  is  produced  without  there 
having  previously  been  an  anticipatory  representation  of  it ; 
whether  it  has  not  had  an  ideal  before  having  a  concrete 
existence  ;  and  whether  it  is  not  the  ideal  that  has  determined 
and  rendered  possible   the   concrete  existence  ?    Hence  the 


490 


APPENDIX. 


question,  whether  an  analogous  cause  ought  not  to  be  sup- 
posed wherever  we  shall  meet  with  similar  effects,  that  is,  co- 
ordinations of  phenomena,  themselves  linked  to  a  final  deter- 
minate phenomenon.  Such  is  the  problem ;  the  psychological 
analysis  of  Spinoza  contains  nothing  that  contradicts  the 
solution  we  have  given  of  it. 


VIII. 

ABUSE   OF   FINAL  CAUSES. 

(Book  i.  Chaptee  v.) 

WE  likewise  attach  to  the  sequel  of  Chapter  v.  on  the  facts 
contrary  to  final  causes  one  of  the  most  widespread 
objections,  that  derived  from  the  abuses  which  have  been 
made  of  them  and  which  can  easily  be  made.  These  abuses 
have  been,  in  fact,  very  frequent.  The  following  are  the 
principal :  — 

I.  The  first  and  principal  abuse  of  final  causes,  which  is 
now  hardly  any  more  to  be  found,  but  which  long  prevailed, 
is  to  make  use  of  this  principle  as  an  argument  against  a  fact, 
or  against  a  law  of  nature,  even  when  that  fact  or  law  was 
demonstrated  by  experiment  and  calculation  —  that  is,  by  the 
strictest  methods  which  human  science  can  employ.  There  is 
not  now  a  single  scientist  who  would  dare  to  reject  a  fact 
because  its  final  cause  was  not  seen,  or  because  it  appeared 
contrary  to  some  final  cause  which  had  been  devised  before- 
hand in  the  mind.     But  it  has  not  always  been  so. 

For  instance,  one  of  the  most  beautiful  astronomical  dis- 
coveries of  modern  times,  due,  if  I  mistake  not,  to  the  pro- 
found genius  of  Herschel,  is  that  of  the  double  and  multiple 
stars  —  that  is,  of  stars  revolving  round  other  stars,  and  serving 
them  in  some  sort  as  planets.  Till  then,  it  had  been  believed 
that  every  star  must  play  the  part  of  a  sun,  that  is,  of  a 
centre,  and  that  around  that  sun  only  dark  bodies  could 
gravitate,  receiving  the  light  of  the  central  sun.  It  is  now 
proved  that  there  are  suns  which  gravitate  around  other  suns, 
and  this  discovery  has  enabled  Bessel  to  apply  to  the  stellar 
universe  the  great  Newtonian  system  of  gravitation,  which, 
till  then,  was  only  applicable  to  our  solar  sj^stem.  But  when 
this  theory  began  to  come  to  light,  towards  the  end  of  the 

■lyi 


492  APPENDIX. 

IStli  century,  a  celebrated  astronomer  of  the  time,  Nicholas 
Fuss,  rejected  it,  relying  on  the  principle  of  final  causes. 
'  What  is  the  good,'  said  he,  '  of  some  luminous  bodies  re- 
volving round  others  ?  The  sun  is  the  onlv  source  whence 
the  planets  derive  light  and  heat.  Were  there  entire  systems 
of  suns  controlled  by  other  suns,  their  neighbourhood  and 
their  motions  would  be  objectless,  their  rays  useless.  The 
suns  have  no  need  to  borrow  from  strange  bodies  what  they 
have  themselves  received  as  their  own.  If  the  secondary 
stars  are  luminous  bodies,  what  is  the  end  of  their  motions? ' 
To  this  question  of  Nicholas  Fuss  it  is  easy  to  reply  that  we 
do  not  know  what  is  that  end ;  but  if  the  fact  is  proved  by 
experience,  as  it  really  is,  we  ought  to  admit  it  as  a  fact, 
whatever  may  be  its  end,  and  without  even  asking  if  it  have 
one.  Such  aberrations  give  too  much  scope  to  the  adversaries 
of  final  causes ;  and  Arago,  in  relating  to  us  these  words  of 
(what  is  rare)  a  too  teleological  astronomer,  could  say  with  the 
somewhat  haughty  satisfaction  of  a  scientist  who  has  found 
metaphysic  at  fault :  '  Such  were  regarded  as  profound  ob- 
jections in  1780.  Well,  these  things  which  seemed  good  for 
nothing,  which  appeared  without  end,  without  use,  really 
exist,  and  have  taken  their  place  among  the  most  beautiful 
and  incontestable  truths  of  astronomy.'  We  must  conclude 
with  the  same  scientist  that  the  principle  cui  bono  has  no 
authority  in  the  positive  sciences,  and  cannot  serve  as  an 
argument  against  the  truth  of  a  fact  or  a  law. 

Let  us  take  another  example  of  the  same  illusion.  Although 
the  theory  of  the  motion  of  the  earth  encountered  especial 
theological  prejudices  at  the  first,  it  has  also  had  to  contend 
against  this  philosophical  prejudice,  that  man  is  the  final  cause 
of  all  things,  the  centre  and  end  of  the  creation.  Taking  for 
granted  that  all  has  been  made  for  man,  one  was  thus  led  to 
give  to  the  earth  a  privileged  place  in  the  universe,  and  it 
appeared  natural  that  the  creature  who  was  the  end  of  all 
things  should  inhabit  the  centre  of  the  world.  To  bring  down 
the  earth  from  this  high  rank  to  the  humble  destiny  of  a 
satellite  of  the  sun  was,  as  it  was  believed,  to  put  in  peril  the 
excellence  and  majesty  of  human  nature,  and  to  throw  a  veil 
over  the  grandeur  of  its  destinies  ;  as  if  the  greatness  of  man 
could  consist  in  inhabiting  a  motionless  centre  rather  than  a 


ABUSE   OF  FINAL  CAUSES.  493 

moveable  planet;  as  if  it  concerned  his  destiny  that  the  stars 
had  been  made  to  turn  round  him,  and  to  afford  hiin  a  divert- 
ing spectacle  ;  as  if,  in  fine,  to  discover  the  true  system  of  the 
world  were  not  a  more  brilliant  proof  of  his  greatness  than 
the  little  privilege  of  inhabiting  the  centre  of  the  world.^ 

2.  An  abusive  employment  of  the  principle  of  final  causes 
has  been  made  not  only  to  oppose  speculative  truths,  but 
inventions  practical  and  useful  to  men.  Euler,  in  his  letters 
to  a  princess  of  Germany,  speaking  of  the  possibility  of  pre- 
venting the  effects  of  lightning,  tells  us :  '  Even  if  the  thing 
succeeded,  still  there  are  many  persons  who  would  doubt 
whether  it  was  lawful  to  make  use  of  such  a  remedy.  In 
effect,  the  ancient  pagans  would  have  regarded  him  as  impious 
who  should  undertake  to  stop  Jupiter  in  casting  his  thunder- 
belts.  Christians  who  are  assured  that  lightning  is  a  work 
of  God,  and  that  Divine  Providence  often  employs  it  because 
of  the  wickedness  of  men,  could  equally  say  that  it  is  an 
impiety  to  seek  to  oppose  sovereign  justice.'  At  the  epoch 
of  Jenner's  great  discovery,  an  English  physician,  Dr.  Rowley, 
said  of  small-pox,  'that  it  is  a  malady  imposed  by  tlie  decree 
of  Heaven  ; '  and  he  declared  vaccination  '  an  audacious  and 
sacrilegious  violation  of  our  holy  religion.  The  designs  of 
these  vaccinators,'  he  added, '  appear  to  defy  Heaven  itself,  and 
the  very  will  of  God.'  ^  On  the  introduction  of  winnowing 
machines,  certain  fanatical  Scottish  sects  opposed  them,  on 
the  pretext  that  the  winds  were  the  work  of  God,  and  that  it 
is  sacrilege  in  man  to  wish  to  raise  them  at  will.  The  wind 
thus  artificially  obtained  was  called  the  deviVs  wind.  Walter 
Scott,  in  his  charming  work  on  the  Scottish  Puritans,  has  not 
failed  to  introduce  this  interesting  trait  of  manners.^  In  fine, 
even  in  our  days,  on  the  introduction  of  anesthetic  agents, 


1  See  also  the  argument  drawn  from  the  abhorrence  of  a  vacuum,  to  wliich 
Pascal  alludes  (Pcns^es,  ed.  Havet,  t.  i.  p.  155):  '  To  act  with  a  view  to  an  end 
belongs  only  to  an  intelligent  nature.  But  not  only  is  everything  co-ordinated 
in  relation  to  the  particular  end,  but  also  everything  conspires  to  the  common 
end  of  all,  as  is  seen  in  water,  which  rises  contrary  to  its  nature,  lest  it  should 
leave  a  void  to  break  the  great  contexture  of  the  world,  which  is  only  maintained 
by  the  uninterrupted  adherence  of  all  its  parts.'  This  argument  is  taken  from 
Grotius,  De  Ycritatc  Religionist  C'hristiance,  lib.  i.  chap.  vii. 

2  Revxte  Britanniqve  (August  1861). 

3  The  pld  Mause  says  to  her  mistress  :  '  Your  ladyship  and  the  steward  are 
wishing  Cuddie  to  tise  a  new  machine  to  winnow  the  corn.     This  machine 


494  APPENDIX. 

many  minds  have  opposed  them,  appealing  to  the  curative 
function  of  pain  in  surgical  operations. 

3.  A  third  abuse  of  final  causes  consists  in  emplo^-ing 
them  as  the  explanation  of  a  phenomenon  which  does  not 
exist.  Fenelon,  in  his  Treatise  on  the  Existence  of  God^  main- 
tains that  the  moon  was  given  to  the  earth  to  give  it  light 
during  the  absence  of  the  sun.  'She  appears  at  the  right 
time,  with  all  the  stars,"  says  he,  'when  the  sun  has  to  go 
away  to  bring  the  day  to  other  hemispheres.'  This  opinion 
furnished  to  Laplace  the  occasion  of  a  victorious  refutation : 
'  Some  partisans  of  final  causes,'  says  he, '  have  supposed  that 
the  moon  was  given  to  the  earth  to  give  it  light  by  night. 
In  that  case,  nature  would  not  have  attained  the  end  it  had 
proposed  to  itself,  since  we  are  often  deprived  at  once  of  the 
light  of  the  sun  and  of  that  of  the  moon.  To  attain  it,  it 
would  have  sufficed  at  the  beginning,  to  place  the  moon 
opposite  the  sun  in  the  same  plane  of  the  ecliptic,  at  a 
distance  from  the  earth  equal  to  the  hundredth  part  of  the 
distance  of  the  earth  from  the  sun,  and  to  give  to  the  moon 
and  the  earth  parallel  rates  of  movement  proportional  to  their 
distances  from  that  luminary.  Then  the  moon,  constantly 
opposite  the  sun,  would  have  described  around  it  an  ellipse 
similar  to  that  of  the  earth  ;  these  two  luminaries  would  have 
succeeded  each  other  above  the  horizon ;  and  as  at  that  dis- 
tance the  moon  would  not  have  been  eclipsed,  its  light  would 
constantly  have  replaced  that  of  the  sun.'  ^  Here,  it  must  be 
confessed,  the  scientist  is  right  as  against  the  theologian. 
Thus  it  is  that  by  an  indiscreet  use  of  final  causes.  Provi- 
dence is  exposed  to  receive  a  lesson  in  mathematics  from  a 
simple  mortal. - 

4.  Lastly,  there  came  the  puerile  and   frivolous   applica- 

opposes  the  designs  of  ProAddence,  by  furnishing  wind  for  your  special  use,  and 
by  human  means,  in  place  of  asking  it  by  prayer,  and  waiting  with  patience  till 
Providence  itself  sends  it.'    (See  Old  Mortality,  chap,  vii.) 

1  Laplace,  Exposition  du  si/steme  dn  monde.  1.  iv.  c.  vi.  See  also,  on  the  final 
cause  of  the  moon,  d'Alembert,  Elemnnts  de  Philosophie,  explanation  §  vi.  We 
ought  to  add  that  a  learned  mathematician  of  Belgium,  M.  ilansion,  professor 
in  the  university  of  Ghent,  points  out  to  us  that  this  passage  of  Laplace  is  '  more 
erroneous  than  that  of  Fe'nelon,'  and  that  Laplace  has  been  him.«elf  refuted  by 
M.  Liouville.    (Additions  a  la  connaissance  des  temps,  1845.) 

-  An  error  of  the  same  kind  is  that  of  Hippocrates,  who  admires^  the  skill 
with  which  the  auricles  of  the  heart  have  been  made  '  to  blow  the  air  into  the 


ABUSE   OF  FINAL  CWSKS.  495 

tioiis  of  final  causes,  applications  which  fill  books,  no  doubt 
excellent,  but  more  fitted  to  edify  than  to  instruct.  Some  of 
these  applications  are  so  ludicrous,  that  one  could  believe 
them  invented  to  ridicule  the  theory  itself.  When  Voltaire, 
"\A'ho  was,  however,  as  he  calls  himself,  a  final  causist,  wrote 
in  Ca7idide,  •  Xoses  are  made  to  bear  spectacles ;  let  us  also 
wear  spectacles,"  he  said  nothing  more  pleasant  than  some  of 
the  assertions  of  Bemardin  de  Saint-Pierre  in  his  Studies  and 
in  his  Harmonies  of  l^ature.  M.  Biot,  in  a  charming  article  on 
•  The  Exact  Ideas  in  Literature,'  has  cited  several  examples 
of  them  which  are  hardly  credible.  Thus,  according  to  Ber- 
nardin  de  Saint-Pierre,  'dogs  are  usually  of  two  opposite 
colours,  the  one  light  and  the  other  dark,  in  order  that, 
wherever  they  may  be  in  the  house,  they  may  be  distin- 
guished from  the  furniture,  with  the  colour  of  which  they 
might  be  confounded.  .  .  .  Wherever  fleas  are,  they  jump 
on  white  colours.  This  instinct  has  been  given  them,  that 
we  may  the  more  easily  catch  them.'  ^ 

To  these  amusing  instances  cited  by  Biot,  one  might  add 
others  not  less  so.  Thus,  Bernardin  de  Saint-Pierre  informs 
us  '  that  the  melon  has  been  divided  into  sections  by  nature 
for  family  eating,'  and  he  adds  'that  the  pumpkin,  being 
larger,  can  be  eaten  with  one's  neighbours.'-  On  reading 
such  puerilities,  one  may  well  exclaim  with  M.  Biot,  'Seri- 
ously, are  these  things  harmonies  of  nature  ? '  An  English 
author,  Buckland.^  asks  why  the  lamb  is  eaten  by  the  wolf, 
and  replies :  *  We  have  here  a  proof  of  the  goodness  of 
Providence,  for  thereby  it  escapes  sickness  and  old  age.'  Such 
apologies  for  Pro\*idence  make  more  atheists  than  believers ; 
at  the  most,  they  might  be  excusable  when  addressed  to 
children,  but  philosophy  is  meant  to  speak  to  men. 

If  we  sum  up  what  is  common  in  all  the  abuses  we  have 


heart '  (Littre,  (Euvrts  d'  Hippocrate,  t.  ix.  p.  77).  It  is  with  reference  to  errors 
of  this  kind  that  Condorcet  wrote:  'This  optimism,  which  consists  in  finding 
everything  admirable  in  nature  as  they  invent  it,  on  condition  of  equally  ad- 
miring its  wisdom  if  unfortunately  irhas  been  discovered  to  have  followed  other 
combinations,  —  this  optimism  of  detail  ought  to  be  banished  from  philosophy, 
the  end  of  which  is  not  to  admire  but  to  know '  {Fragment  tur  r Atlantide). 

1  Biot,  Melanges,  t.  i. 

-  J^tudes  de  la  nature,  Etude  xi.,  'Harmonies  vege'tales.' 

•  Quoted  by  Jules  Simon  in  his  book,  De  la  religion  naturelle,  part  2,  chap.  L 


496 


APPENDIX. 


just  instanced,  we  shall  see  that  the  error  does  not  consist  in 
admitting  final  causes,  but  in  assuming  false  ones.  That 
there  are  erroneous  and  arbitrary  final  causes  there  is  no 
doubt ;  that  there  are  none  at  all  is  another  question.  Men 
are  as  often  mistaken  regarding  efficient  as  regarding  final 
causes ;  they  have  as  often  attributed  to  nature  false  prop- 
erties as  false  intentions.  But  as  the  errors  committed  re- 
garding the  efficient  cause  have  not  prevented  scientists  from 
believing  that  there  are  true  causes,  so  the  illusions  and  pre- 
judices of  the  vulgar  with  respect  to  final  causes  ought  not  to 
determine  philosophy  to  abandon  them  altogether. 

As  regards  the  first  point,  we  have  already  seen  that  the 
final  cause  ought  in  no  way  to  restrict  the  liberty  of  science. 
No  preconceived  idea  can  prevail  against  a  fact :  but  the  fact 
once  discovered,  nothing  forbids  us  to  seek  its  finality.  'We 
must,'  as  M.  Florens  has  justly  said,  '  proceed  not  from  final 
causes  to  facts,  but  from  facts  to  final  causes.' 

As  to  the  second  point,  the  final  cause,  far  from  forbidding 
any  useful  invention,  justifies  them  all  beforehand,  and  a 
jDviori.  For,  without  even  going  so  far  as  to  say  that  all  has 
been  made  for  man's  use,  it  suffices  that  man,  having  been 
created  industrious,  has  been  made  to  make  use  of  all  things, 
in  order  that  every  new  invention  may  thereby  be  warranted 
as  implicitly  willed  by  Divine  Providence.  It  is  only,  then, 
an  unenlightened  superstition,  and  not  the  doctrine  of  final 
causes,  which  is  here  in  question. 

For  the  third  point,  we  shall  say  as  before,  that  one  must 
advance  '  from  facts  to  final  causes,  and  not  from  final  causes 
to  facts.'  Thus  understood,  this  theory  can  in  no  way  favour 
any  scientific  error. 

And  for  the  fourth  part,  one  must  distinguish  accidental 
from  essential  final  causes.  The  first  are  the  more  or  less 
arbitrary  uses  which  men  obtain  from  external  things,  and 
which  have  not  always  been- attached  to  them;  the  second 
are  the  uses  inherent  in  the  very  essence  of  the  things  — for 
instance,  the  uses  of  the  organs.^    Abuses  of  this  kind  almost 


1  Voltaire  says  very  well  on  this  subject:  '  In  order  to  become  certain  of  the 
true  end  for  which  a  cause  acts,  that  effect  must  be  at  all  times  and  in  all 
places.  There  have  not  been  vessels  at  all  times  and  on  all  seas:  thus  it  can- 
not be  said  that  the  ocean  has  been  made  for  vessels.     One  feels  how  ridicu- 


ABUSE   OF  FINAL   CAUSES.  407 

always  arise  from  confounding  external  and  internal  finality; 
and  this  very  confusion  is  the  source  of  the  most  part  of  the 
objections  directed  against  this  theory,  and,  in  particular,  of 
the  following  objection. 

3Ian  the  final  cause  of  the  creation. 

The  principal  abuse  which  has  been  made  of  the  doctrine  of 
final  causes,  and 'which  has  been  the  most  protested  against, 
is  that  to  which  we  have  already  alluded,  and  which  consists 
in  making  man  the  centre  and  end  of  the  creation,  and  in 
believing  that  all  has  been  made  for  his  use  and  convenience.^ 
Fcnelon  has  often  fallen  into  this  extreme.  He  regards  water 
iis  made  '  in  order  to  sustain  those  immense  floating  edifices 
which  are  called  vessels.  It  not  only  quenches  men's  thirst, 
but  also  waters  the  dry  fields.  .  .  .  The  ocean,  which  seems 
placed  between  the  continents  to  divide  them  for  ever,  is,  on 
the  contrary,  the  meeting-place  of  all  nations ;  it  js  by  this 
road  that  the  Old  World  joins  hands  with  the  New,  and  that 
the  New  affords  the  Old  so  many  commodities  and  riches.' 
Fcnelon  forgets  that  many  centuries  had  to  elapse  before  the 
ocean  served  as  a  road  between  the  Old  World  and  the  New, 
and  that  when  the  trial  of  it  was  made,  other  defenders  of 
Providence  said  that  these  unknown  and  perilous  ways  ought 
not  to  be  faced.  This  too  exclusively  anthropological  point  of 
view  was  denounced  by  Descartes  as  anti-philosophical.  '  Al- 
though it  be,'  says  this  philosopher, '  a  pious  and  good  thought 
iis  regards  morals,  to  believe  that  God  has  made  all  things  for 
us,  to  the  end  that  that  may  stir  us  up  the  more  to  love  and 
thank  Him  for  so  many  benefits ;  although  it  be  also  true  in 
some  sense,  because  there  is  nothing  created  from  which  we 
cannot  derive  some  use,  ...  it  is  not  at  all  probable  that  all 
things  have  been  made  for  us,  in  such  a  wa}^  that  God  has 


lous  it  would  be  to  allege  that  nature  had  -svrought  from  the  earliest  times  to 
adjust  itself  to  our  arbitrary  iuventious,  which  have  all  appeared  so  late;  but 
it  is  very  evident  that  if  noses  have  not  been  made  for  spectacles,  they  have 
been  for  smelling,  and  that  there  have  been  noses  ever  since  there  have  been 
men.' — Dkt.  phil.,  art.  '  Causes  finales.' 

1  This  doctrine  has  indeed  fallen  into  abeyance  In  modern  philosoiihy  since 
Descartes  and  Leibnitz.  However,  it  still  has  defenders.  We  will  mention, 
for  example,  as  particularly  interesting  in  this  ijoint  of  view,  the  work  entitled 
riJomme  ct  la  creation,  theorie  des  causes  finales,  by  Desdouits  (Paris,  18;U,  2d 
ed.  1846).  Nowhere  has  the  anthropocentric  point  of  view  been  expressed  in  a 
more  affirmative  and  decided  manner. 


498 


APPENDIX. 


had  no  other  end  in  creating  them ;  and  it  would  be,  as  I 
think,  to  be  impertinent  to  seek  to  use  this  opinion  in  support 
of  reasonings  in  physics,  for  we  cannot  doubt  that  there  are 
an  infinity  of  things  now  in  the  world,  or  that  there  formerly 
were,  though  they  may  have  entirely  ceased  to  be,  without 
any  man  having  seen  or  known  them,  and  which  have  never 
served  him  for  any  purpose.' ^  Descartes,-as  we  see,  only 
admits  edification  in  one  point  of  view;  but  as  regards- 
science,  he  sets  aside  this  too  easy  explanation  of  things 
with  reference  to  the  convenience  of  man,  this  presumptuous 
pretence  to  refer  all  to  ourselves.  Goethe  has  criticised  the 
same  prejudice  :  '  Man  is  naturally  disposed  to  consider  him- 
self as  the  centre  and  end  of  creation,  and  to  regard  all  the 
beings  that  surround  him  as  bound  to  subserve  his  personal 
profit.  He  takes  possession  of  the  animal  and  vegetable 
kingdoms,  devours  them,  and  glorifies  that  God  whose  fatherly 
bounty  has  prepared  the  festal  board.  He  removes  its  milk 
from  the  cow,  its  honey  from  the  bee,  its  wool  from  the 
sheep;  and  because  he  uses  these  animals  for  his  profit,  he 
imagines  they  have  been  created  for  his  use.  He  cannot 
imagine  that  the  least  blade  of  grass  is  not  there  for  him.'  ^ 

But  no  one  has  criticised  this  singular  illusion  regarding 
final  causes  in  a  more  spirited  and  piquant  manner  than 
Montaigne,  in  a  famous  passage  :  '  Why  should  not  a  gosling 
say  thus :  All  the  parts  of  the  universe  regard  me  ;  the  earth 
serves  me  for  walking,  the  sun  to  give  me  light,  the  stars  to 
inspire  me  with  their  influences.  I  have  this  use  of  the 
winds,  that  of  the  waters ;  there  is  nothing  which  this  vault 
so  favourably  regards  as  me ;  I  am  the  darling  of  nature. 
Does  not  man  look  after,  lodge,  and  serve  me  ?  It  is  for  me 
he  sows  and  grinds :  if  he  eat  me,  so  does  he  his  fellow-man 
as  well ;  and  so  do  I  the  worms  that  kill  and  eat  him.  .  .  . 
A  crane  could  say  as  much,  and  still  more  magnificently,  for 
the  liberty  of  its  flight,  and  for  the  possession  of  that  high 
and  beautiful  resfion."  ^ 


1  Descartes,  Principes  de  la  philosophie,  iii.  2. 

2  Eckermann,  Gesprilche  mit  Goethe,  t.  ii.  p.  282. 

3  Esuaifi,  ii.  xii.  He  says  again:  'Who  has  persuaded  himself  that  tliis 
motion  of  the  celestial  vault,  the  eternal  light  of  these  lamps  revolving  so 
proudly  above  his  head,  the  awful  movements  of  this  infinite  sea,  were  cstali- 
lished  and  are  maintained  so  many  ages  for  his  convenience  and  service  ? '     See 


ABUSE   OF  FINAL  CAUSES.  499 

Doubtless,  no  philosopher  will  dispute  the  justice  of  the 
preceding  observations,  and  in  truth  it  is  almost  entirely  in 
popular  or  religious  writings  that  the  prejudice  in  question 
will  be  found  especiall}-  developed.  But  it  would  be  a  grave 
error  to  believe  that  we  have  arraigned  the  doctrine  of  final 
causes  by  destroying  or  reducing  to  its  just  limits  the  doc- 
trine of  man  the  end  of  the  creation.^  Wherein,  I  ask,  are 
these  two  conceptions  bound  together  ?  Cannot  I  then 
believe,  in  a  general  manner,  that  God  has  proportioned  in 
every  being  the  means  to  the  end,  without  affirming  that  all 
beings  have  been  prepared  for  the  use  of  one  ?  Montaigne, 
doubtless,  has  the  right  to  humble  man  by  the  ironical  lan- 
guage he  attributes  to  the  goose,  still  we  need  only  see  in 
this  the  hyperbole  permitted  to  satire,  and  not  the  exact 
expression  of  things.  But  it  being  true  that  the  universe  has 
neither  been  created  for  the  use  of  the  goose  nor  for  that  of 
man,  does  it  follow  that  the  organs  of  each  have  not  been 
given  them  for  their  own  use  ? 

If  we  contemplate  the  immensity  of  the  worlds,  many  of 
which  are  only  known  to  us  by  the  light  they  send  us,  and 
which  takes  ages  to  come  to  us,  others  of  which  have  only 
been  revealed  to  us  since  the  invention  of  the  telescope,  —  if  we 
consider  these  two  infinitudes  of  Pascal,  between  which  man 
is  suspended  as  a  mean  between  nothing  and  all,  it  is  abso- 
lutely untenable  that  ail  has  been  created  for  man.  Even 
the  earth  is  not  entirely  for  his  use.  Let  us  add  that  the 
obstacles  which  he  encounters  there,  the  evils  which  nature 
opposes  to  him  at  every  step,  the  noxious  animals,  maladies, 
etc.,  seem  also  to  indicate  that  man  has  not  been  the  exclusive 
object  of  the  designs  and  provisions  of  Providence  ;  and  even 
if  these  means  should  be  to  him  a  trial,  still  they  have  not 
necessarily  this  end,  since  such  beings  exist  where  man  has 
not  yet  gone,  where  it  would  be  possible  for  him  not  to  go  if 
he  chose :  he  could  then  put  nature  in  default,  and  it  would 
then  have  wrought  in  vain. 

again,  for  the  same  oojection,  Spinoza,  Ethics,  Book  i.  appendix  ;  Buffon, 
Histoire  des  animaux,  chap.  i.  ;  Biot,  Melanges,  t.  ii.  p.  7  ;  Ch.  Martius,  De 
I'unM  de  I'orrjanisme  {Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  15  Juin  18(12) ;  and  among  the 
ancients,  Cicero,  De  Nuturd  Deorum,  lib.  i.  ix.,  'Disc,  of  Velleius.' 

1  Leibnitz,  whose  whole  philosophy  rests  on  the  final  cause,  is  one  of  those 
who  have  most  contributed  to  uproot  the  prejudice  in  question. 


500 


APPENDIX. 


In  place  of  saying  that  all  has  been  created  for  the  use  of 
man,  we  must  say  that  every  being  has  been  created  for  itself, 
each  being  having  received  the  means  necessary  to  support  its 
own  existence ;  and  it  is  above  all  in  this  internal  adaptation 
of  the  being  that  the  principle  of  finality  is  displayed.  In 
this  point  of  view,  nothing  is  more  false  than  the  conjecture 
of  Lucretius  and  of  Spinoza,  reproduced  by  Goethe,  namely, 
that  man,  having  known  how  to  satisfy  his  wants  from 
external  things,  and  having  for  this  reason  imagined  that  all 
has  been  made  for  his  use,  has  thereupon  applied  this  sort  of 
reasoning  to  the  organs  even  of  animals,  and  to  his  own  organs, 
and  has  concluded  from  them  that  these  organs  were  means 
arranged  for  ends,  —  that  the  eye  was  made  for  seeing,  the 
teeth  for  cutting,  and  the  legs  foi  walking.  There  is  no  need 
of  such  a  circuit  to  perceive  the  adaptation  of  organs  to  their 
ends  ;  and  even  supposing  that  in  fact  men  had  reasoned  thus, 
which  is  scarcely  probable,  there  is  no  reason  to  bind  these  two 
ideas  together,  namely,  the  personal  utility  for  man  of  external 
things,  and  the  respective  utility  of  the  organs  and  instincts 
for  the  animals  themselves  which  are  endued  with  them. 

We  cannot  too  much  insist  on  the  distinction  established 
by  Kant  between  internal  finality,  or  the  principle  according 
to  which  each  being  is  organized  for  its  own  preservation,  and 
relative  or  exteriial  finality,  according  to  which  each  being  is 
only  a  means  for  the  subsistence  of  another  being.  Each  be- 
ing is  at  first  organized  for  itself,  and  in  the  second  place  it  is 
subordinately  fit  for  the  subsistence  of  other  beings.  Man 
himself  is  not  exempt  from  this  law ;  and  it  could  as  well  be 
said  that  he  is  made  in  order  to  feed  worms,  as  it  can  be  said 
that  other  animals  are  made  to  feed  him :  he  is,  therefore, 
himself  a  means  as  well  as  an  end. 

But  after  having  insisted  on  this  first  principle,  that  each 
being  is  created  for  itself,  it  is  evident  tliat  one  cannot  stop 
there ;  for  it  would  follow  that  each  being  is  an  absolute 
whole,  having  no  relation  to  other  beings,  each  of  which  would 
equally  form  an  absolute  system.  It  must  not  be  forgotten 
that  each  being  forms  part  of  the  universe,  —  that  is,  of  a  more 
general  system,  of  which  it  is  only  a  member,  and  without 
which  it  could  not  itself  exist.  This  relation  of  the  part  to 
the  whole  proves  to  us  that  no  organized  being  can  be  con- 


ABUSE   OF  FINAL  CAUSES.  501 

siclered  as  a  centre  except  relatively ;  each  of  these  partial 
systems  ought,  therefore,  to  be  co-ordinated  to  the  whole  and 
to  each  other,  whence  those  reciprocal  correlations,  according 
to  which  all  nature's  beings  are  at  once  ends  and  means.^ 
What  is  the  part  of  man  in  this  system?  This  is  .the  ques- 
tion we  have  meanwhile  to  examine. 

Every  being  requiring,  in  order  to  exist,  1st,  An  appro- 
priate organization,  2d,  Means  of  subsistence  prepared  apart 
from  itself,  may  be  considered,  as  we  have  seen  above,  as  an 
end  of  nature  in  these  two  points  of  view ;  ^  nature  has  busied 
itself  with  it,  and  has  made  it  one  of  the  objects  of  its  con- 
cern by  thus  preparing,  internally  and  externally,  all  that  is 
necessary  for  it.  By  this  title  man  is  an  end  of  nature,  as 
well  as  the  other  creatures.  Moreover,  in  proportion  as  a 
greater  number  of  means  are  found  disposed  for  the  preserva- 
tion of  a  being,  or,  what  is  the  same  thing,  as  the  organization 
of  a  being  has  been  made  to  enjoy  a  greater  number  of  things, 
it  may  be  said  that  the  being  thus  privileged  is  a  more  im- 
portant end  for  nature ;  so  that  a  being  has  the  right  to 
measure  its  importance  as  a  centre  or  end  in  the  universe  b}" 
the  number  of  uses  it  can  derive  from  the  medium  in  which 
it  lives,  without,  however,  having  ever  the  right  to  arrogate 
to  itself  the  quality  of  last  and  absolute  end.  But  who  can 
deny  that,  of  all  creatures,  man  is  the  one  most  fitted  to  use 
external  things,  the  one  to  whom  the  greatest  number  of 
things  are  co-ordinated  in  quality  of  means?  and,  conse- 
quently, why  should  not  he  have  the  right  to  believe  himself 
the  most  important  end  of  Providence,  not  in  the  universe 
taken  as  a  whole,  but  relatively  to  the  little  corner  of  it 
which  we  know,  and  that  without  in  any  manner  afiSrming 
that  even  in  that  little  corner  all  is  made  exclusively  for  liim  ? 

It  is  objected  that  this  supposition,  even  thus  reduced,  will 
still  lead  to  the  most  puerile  and  ridiculous  consequences : 
all  the  artificial  inventions  of  man  will  be  considered  as  ends 


1  '  There  is  no  being,'  says  Rousseau  very  well,  '  which  cannot  in  some 
respects  be  regarded  as  the  centre  of  all  the  others,  around  which  they  are 
arranged,  so  that  thcij  are  all  reciprocally  ends  and  means  relatively  to  each  other. 
The  mind  is  confounded  and  loses  itself  in  this  infinitude  of  relations.'  These 
expressions  of  Rousseau  will  be  observed,  which  are  jirecisely  the  same  aa 
those  Kant  afterwards  applied  to  the  definition  of  living  beings. 

"■  See  p.  193. 


602 


APPENDIX 


prepared  by  the  goodness  of  Providence ;  that  is,  say  they, 
but  to  confound  the  use  with  the  end,  and  to  refer  to  the 
first  cause  what  is  only  the  result  of  human  reflection. 

F^nelon  has  expressed  this  objection  in  these  terms :  '  I 
hear  certain  philosophers  replying  to  me  that  all  this  discourse 
on  the  art  displayed  in  nature  is  only  a  perpetual  sophism. 
All  nature,  they  will  tell  me,  is  for  the  use  of  man  ;  it  is 
true,  but  it  is  rashly  concluded  that  it  has  been  made  with 
art  for  the  use  of  man.  ...  It  is  true  that  human  industry 
makes  use  of  an  infinity  of  things  with  which  nature  furnishes 
it,  .  .  .  but  nature  has  not  made  these  things  expressly  for 
its  convenience.  For  instance,  villagers  daily  climb  by  certain 
pointed  rocks  to  the  summit  of  a  mountain ;  yet  it  does  not 
follow  that  these  pointed  rocks  have  been  cut  with  art  as  a 
ladder  for  the  convenience  of  men.  So,  too,  when  one  is 
in  the  country  during  a  storm,  and  meets  with  a  cavern,  one 
makes  use  of  it  as  a  house  to  take  shelter ;  yet  it  is  not  true 
that  this  cavern  has  been  expressly  made  to  serve  as  a  house 
for  men.  It  is  the  same  with  the  entire  world.  It  has  been 
formed  by  chance,  and  without  design ;  but  men,  finding  it 
such  as  it  is,  have  had  the  skill  to  turn  it  to  their  uses.'  ^ 

It  is,  in  effect,  to  abuse  final  causes  even  to  include  these 
sort  of  inventions  among  them  —  as,  for  instance,  if  it  be  said 
that  the  elasticity  of  steam  exists  in  order  that  there  ma}'  be 
railways.  But  yet  once  more,  we  must  not  confound  artificial 
with  natural  inventions,  like  walking,  sight,  or  nutrition. 
For  it  would  be  absurd  to  say  that  man,  having  found  animals 
good  to  eat,  has  eaten  them.  There  is  here  a  necessary  rela- 
tion, which  does  not  exist  in  the  other  case  ;  and  the  preser- 
vation of  man  being  attached  to  the  satisfaction  of  this  want, 
it  is  here  not  the  mere  result  of  reflection.  For,  first,  it  is  a 
blind  force,  and  not  a  reflecting  industry,  that  leads  him  to 
the  satisfaction  of  these  wanis;  and,  in  the  second  place, 
there  is  a  natural  adaptation,  anterior  to  all  industry,  in  the 
organs  themselves. 

In  a  word,  to  recall  what  we  have  said  in  the  previous 
chapter,  the  internal  supposes  an  external  finality,  and  the 
latter  is  only  the  reciprocal  of  the  former.  If  man,  according 
to  his  organization,  is  made  to  use  things,  these  things  le- 

1  Fenelon,  Existence  de  Dieu,  Ire  part.  c.  iii. 


ABUSE   OF  FINAL  CAUSES.  503 

ciprocally  are  made  to  be  utilized  by  him.  And  in  proportion 
as  he  uses  and  can  use  these  things,  he  has  the  right  to 
consider  himself  as  being  one  of  their  ends.  It  is  in  this 
sense  and  measure  that  we  must  restrict  the  general  proposi- 
tion which  has  been  abused,  namely,  that  man  is  the  end,  if 
not  of  the  creation,  at  least  of  the  little  world  he  inhabits.^ 

'  One  can  understand  it,  with  Kant,  in  a  much  higher  sense,  by  saying  that 
the  world  only  exists  to  he  the  theatre  of  morality. 


IX. 

FINAL  CAUSES  IN  THE  SANKHYA  PHILOSOPHY. 

(Book  i.  Chaptek  vi.  Page  192.) 

THE  quotation  inserted  in  the  text  gives  us  occasion  to 
make  known  a  beautiful  and  original  application  of  the 
principle  of  final  causes  in  the  Hindu  philosophy.  We  find 
it  in  the  exposition  of  the  Sankhya  system  made  by  M. 
Barthelemy  St.  Hilaire.^ 

Ordinarily,  the  final  cause,  from  Socrates  to  Leibnitz,  ha& 
served  to  prove  the  existence  of  God.  In  the  system  of 
Kapila,  which  is  called  the  atheistic  Sankhya  (in  opposition 
to  the  system  of  Patandjali,  or  the  theistic  Sankhya),  final 
causes  are  employed  to  prove  the  existence  of  the  soul. 

'  The  soul  exists,  it  is  said  in  the  Sankhya  Karika,^  because 
this  vast  assemblage  of  sensible  things  only  takes  place  for 
the  use  of  another  (consodatio  propter  alius  causam  fit).'' 

We  see  that  the  point  of  departure  of  the  argument,  as  in 
the  physico-theological  argument,  is  the  order,  harmony,  and 
combination  of  material  elements.  Only,  in  place  of  inferring 
the  existence  of  an  ordaining  being,  there  is  inferred  the 
existence  of  a  being  that  serves  as  the  end  of  the  combina- 
tion ;  and  that  being  is  the  soul.  The  major  premiss  is  not : 
Every  work  supposes  a  worker,  —  that  is,  some  one  that  has 
made  it,  —  but :  Every  work  supposes  some  one  for  whom  it 

1  M^moires  siir  la  philosophie  Sankhya,  by  Barthelemy  St.  Hilaire  {M€moires 
de  I'Acad^mie  cles  Sciences  Morales  et  PoUtiques,  tome  viii.). 

2  The  Sankhya  Karika  is  an  abridgment  in  verse  of  the  doctrine  of  Kapihi. 
We  have  besides  the  Sankhya  Pravachana,  which  is  attributed  to  Kapila  him- 
self. M.  Barthelemy  St.  Hilaire  has  given  ns  a  French  translation  of  the 
Karika,  and  M.  Lassen  a  Latin  translation.  Besides,  Mr.  Wilson,  in  an  essay  of 
which  M.  Barthe'lemy  St.  Hilaire  has  largely  made  use,  has  given  us  the  trans- 
lation of  a  Hindu  commentator  of  the  Karika,  named  Gaoudapada,  belonging 
to  the  8th  century  of  our  era. 

504 


SANKHYA  PHILOSOPHY.  505 

has  been  made.  This  major  is  proved,  as  in  the  schools  of 
the  West,  by  examples  borrowed  from  human  industry :  '  A 
bed  supposes  some  one  for  tvhom  it  is  made ;  so  also  the 
body  is  made  for  the  nse  of  some  one.'  ^ 

Another  argument,  analogous  to  the  preceding,  and  which 
is  another  form  of  it,  serves  again  to  prove  the  existence  of 
the  soul :  '  There  must  be  a  being  to  enjoy  things  ;  esse  debet 
qui  fruitur,'  which  is  explained  in  the  commentary  by  these 
words,  '  Things  are  made  to  be  enjoyed ;  things  visible  to  be 
seen.    There  must  be  a  guest  to  taste  the  flavour  of  the  dishes.' 

What,  then,  is  the  part  of  the  soul  in  nature  ?  It  is  '  a 
witness,  an  arbiter,  a  spectator ;  testis,  arbiter,  spectator.'  It 
is,  says  the  commentator,  '  like  a  beggar  that  passes  through 
life,  like  a  traveller  who  removes  without  remaining  in  the 
place  he  visits,  like  the  ascetic  who  contemplates  the  toils  of 
the  villager  without  taking  part  in  them.' 

We  perceive  the  character  of  this  strange  system  taking 
shape.  While  in  the  Western  philosophy  the  principle  of 
final  causes  is  employed  to  prove  the  existence  of  an  active 
and  productive  cause,  here  it  serves  to  prove  the  existence  of 
a  contemplator  who  is  present  at  the  spectacle  of  the  universe, 
without  mingling  with  or  acting  in  it. 

The  soul,  according  to  the  Hindu  philosophy,  is  essentially 
inactive,  and  the  body  is  essentially  insensible.  It  is  by  its 
union  with  the  body  that  the  soul  appears  active  ;  it  is  by  its 
union  with  the  soul  that  the  body  appears  sensible.  '  The 
body,'  says  the  commentator,  '  appears  sensible  without  being 
so  ;  as  a  vessel  filled  with  a  warm  liquid  appears  warm  —  with 
a  cold  liquid  appears  cold.  .  .  .  The  soul  appears  active 
without  being  so ;  as  a  man  mixed  with  thieves,  without 
being  one  himself,  appears  culpable  and  is  not.'  'It  is,'  says 
the  Karika,  '  the  union  of  the  lame  and  the  blind.' 

We  see  the  reason  of  the  union  of  the  soul  with  the  body, 
or  with  nature.  By  this  union  nature  has  an  end  and  a 
reason  of  being ;  by  it  the  soul  becomes  self-conscious. 

1  It  would  even  seem  that  this  is  the  true  form  of  the  principle  of  final 
causes;  for  to  say,  'Every  work  supposes  a  loorker,'  is  to  infer  the  efficient 
rather  than  the  final  cause.  It  is  more  exact  to  saj%  like  the  Hindus,  '  Every 
combination  supposes  an  end; '  but  then,  to  conclude  by  a  second  principle, 
'  All  that  is  made  for  an  end  supposes  a  worker,  that  is  to  say,  an  intellijjent 
cause.'    (See  Preliminary  Chapter.) 


606  APPENDIX. 

'  The  soul,  in  becoming  united  to  nature,  has  only  a  single 
object,  to  contemplate  and  to  know  it ;  this  knowledge  is  the 
condition  of  its  safety.  To  contemplate  nature  is  to  enjoy 
it.  Nature  would  be  without  an  end,  if  there  were  not  a 
being  to  enjoy  and  contemplate  it.  .  .  .  Without  the  soul 
that  knows  and  thinks,  nature  would  be  as  if  it  were  not ; 
without  nature,  the  soul  in  its  isolation  would  be  next  to  a 
nonentity.  By  their  union,  the  universe  lives  and  exists, 
and  the  soul  becomes  self-conscious.' 

But  if  nature  is  made  to  be  contemplated  by  the  soul,  is 
the  soul  made  exclusively  to  contemplate  nature  ?  No,  beyond 
doubt ;  on  the  contrary,  '  there  comes  a  moment  when  the 
satiated  soul  desires  to  be  delivered  from  the  bond  that  fetters 
it ;  but  this  deliverance  can  only  take  place  after  having  been 
first  united  to  nature.  •  .  .  The  evolution  of  nature  has  thus 
no  other  end  than  the  liberation  of  individual  souls,  and 
therein  nature  acts  for  another  as  if  it  acted  for  itself.' 

Hence  an  admirable  theory,  that  of  the  disinterestedness  of 
nature,  that  only  works  for  another  than  itself,  and  without 
receiving  anything  in  return.  '  Nature  only  acts  to  bring 
about  the  liberation  of  the  soul ;  but  the  soul  yields  nothing 
to  nature,  which  acts  for  another  disinterestedly.  It  is  like  a 
person  who  should  neglect  his  own  affairs  for  those  of  a  friend. 
If  it  concerned  itself  alone,  nature  would  remain  inert ;  but 
for  the  soul  it  displays  an  indefatigable  activity.' 

However,  this  theory  of  an  unconscious  activity  of  nature 
working  in  the  interest  of  the  soul  gave  rise  to  a  great  diffi- 
culty. On  the  one  hand.  How,  in  short,  can  nature,  being 
blind,  apply  itself  to  procure  the  good  of  the  soul  ?  on  the 
other  hand,  How  can  the  soul,  being  inactive,  act  on  nature  ? 
The  Hindu  philosophy  here  met,  under  a  very  special  form, 
the  great  problem  of  the  union  of  soul  and  body,  of  nature 
and  spirit.  By  this  means  the  theistic  idea,  till  then  very 
much  hidden,  was  introduced  into  the  Sankhya  philosophy. 
Nature  needs,  not  a  worker,  but  a  guide.  It  is  evidently, 
again,  the  principle  of  final  causes  that  has  produced  this  con- 
sequence. '  Whether  the  evolution  of  nature  takes  place  for 
nature  itself,'  says  a  Hindu  commentator,^ '  or  takes  place  for 
another,  it  is  always  an  intelligent  principle  that  acts.    Nature 

1  Vatchespati  Misra.    See  Wilson,  p.  168. 


SANKIIYA  PHILOSOniY.  507 

cannot  be  without  rationality,  and  there  is  necessarily  an 
intelligent  being  that  directs  and  dominates  nature.  Souls,  all 
intelligent  though  they  are,  cannot  in  their  individuality 
direct  nature,  because  they  do  not  know  its  pro]3er  and 
essential  character.  There  must,  then,  be  a  being  that  sees 
all  things  and  that  is  the  sovereign  of  nature  ;  there  must  be 
a  God  (Isvara).' 

But  this  interpretation  is  comparatively  recent,  and  in  the 
Sankhya  of  Kapila,  nature,  as  in  Aristotle,  is  unconscious ;  it 
acts  for  the  bBst,  without  knowing  what  it  does.  '  As  the 
action  of  milk,  that  knows  not  what  it  does,  is  the  cause  of 
the  growth  of  the  calf,  so  the  action  of  nature  is  the  cause 
of  the  liberation  of  the  soul.'  — '  Nature  is  in  itself  incapable 
of  enjoying ;  it  is  like  the  transport  of  a  load  of  saffron  by 
a  camel.' 

In  whatever  manner  this  predetermination  of  nature  to  the 
deliverance  of  the  soul  is  made,  it  still  holds  —  and  this  is  the 
capital  point  of  the  Hindu  doctrine  —  that  nature  has  not  its 
end  in  itself,  and  that  it  only  exists  in  the  interest  of  the  soul. 
At  this  point  occurs  the  passage  quoted  in  our  text  (Book 
I.  chap.  vi.  p.  192),  as  well  as  several  not  less  charming,  and 
which  mean  the  same  thing: 

'  As  a  dancer,  after  having  shown  herself  to  the  assembly, 
ceases  to  dance,  so  nature  ceases  to  act  after  having  mani- 
fested itself  to  the  mind  of  man.'  The  commentary  adds: 
'  Nature  seems  to  say  to  man,  ''  See  what  I  am  ;  thou  art 
other  than  me."' '  — '  Nothing  more  timid  than  nature  ;  and 
when  once  she  has  said  to  herself,  "  I  have  been  seen,"  she 
does  not  expose  herself  a  second  time  to  the  view  of  the  soul.' 
—  •  Natttre,  when  once  her  fault  has  been  discovered,  no  longer 
glides  under  the  eyes  of  man,  and  hides  herself  like  a  woman 
of  good  family.' 1  —  '"She  has  been  seen  by  me,"  says  the 
spectator  to  himself.  "  I  have  been  seen  by  him,"  says  the 
nature  that  ceat-'es  to  act,  "  and  there  is  no  more  motive  for 
creation."  ' 

All  these  texts  have  the  same  meaning.  Nature,  in  the 
Hindu  philosophy,  has  btit  one  reason  of  being,  one  end  —  to 

1  There  is  a  dispute  among  Hindu  commentators  on  tlie  meaning  of  this 
thouglit.  The  most  probable  is,  that  for  nature  it  is  a  sort  of  fault  to  let  itself 
be  seen. 


508  APPENDIX. 

be  coDtemplatecl  by  mind,  and,  in  giving  it  self-consciousness, 
to  lead  it  to  liberation  and  salvation.  There  is  here,  as  it 
seems,  a  sort  of  vicious  circle.  For  if  the  soul  has  need  to  be 
delivered,  it  is  because  it  is  bound ;  and  if  it  is  bound,  it  is 
because  it  is  united  to  nature ;  so  that  if  nature  were  not, 
the  soul  would  have  no  need  to  be  delivered.  But  although 
we  do  not  find  in  the  texts  the  explanation  of  this  difficulty, 
we  may  yet  be  allowed  to  think  that  the  soul  without  its 
union  to  nature  would  remain  in  the  enveloped  and  uncon- 
scious state,  that  union  with  nature  is  necessary  to  give  it 
self-consciousness  by  the  contemplation  and  knowledge  that 
it  takes  of  it,  by  the  distinction  of  the  me  and  the  7iot  me. 
'  Nature  seems  to  say  to  man,  "  This  is  what  I  am  ;  thou  art 
other  than  me." '  But  this  consciousness  that  the  soul  takes 
of  itself  is  for  it  the  first  step  of  deliverance.  It  learns  to 
distinguish  itself  from  nature,  to  oppose  itself  to  it,  to  raise 
itself  above  it ;  and  thereafter  nature  has  nothing  more  to 
teach  it,  nor  to  do  for  it.  '  They  might  be  called  a  creditor 
and  debtor  who  have  squared  their  accounts.' 

Let  us  add,  to  complete  this  theory,  that  liberation  in  the 
Hindu  philosophy  has  two  degrees  :  in  this  life,  and  after 
death.  In  the  first  case,  the  soul,  although  free,  and  become 
indifferent  to  nature,  remains  united  to  the  body,  '  as  the 
potter's  wheel  still  turns  after  the  action  that  had  set  it  in 
motion.'  In  the  second  case,  the  soul  separates  from  the 
body,  and,  the  end  being  attained,  nature  ceases  to  act.  It  is 
then  that  '  the  mind  obtains  a  liberation  that  is  altogether 
definitive  and  absolute.'  This  supreme  state  the  Buddhists 
afterwards  called  Nirvana,  on  which  so  many  controversies 
have  been  raised. 

To  sum  up  :  the  entire  system  of  the  Sankhya  rests  on  the 
idea  of  the  final  cause.  But  in  place  of  conceiving  a  supreme 
cause  that  acts  with  intelligence  for  an  end,  it  is  this  intelli- 
gent and  unconscious  nature  that  tends  towards  an  end.  Thus 
the  Sankhya  approaches  the  philosophy  of  Aristotle.  But  while 
in  Aristotle  nature  has  as  its  object  God  or  the  pure  act,  in 
the  Sankhya  it  has  as  its  object  Soul  and  the  soul  of  man. 
While,  according  to  Aristotle,  it  is  an  instinctive  desire,  and 
in  some  sort  for  its  own  satisfaction,  that  nature  is  developed, 
in  the  Sankhya  philosophy  it  is  in  the  interest  of  another,  in 


SANKHYA  PHILOSOriiY.  509 

the  interest  of  the  soul,  that  this  development  takes  place. 
No  doubt  one  might  jjush  the  approximation  farther,  and 
maintain  that  the  contemplation,  which  is  for  Aristotle  the 
final  term  of  activity,  corresponds  to  the  deliverance  of  the 
soul  in  the  Sankhya.  But  this  would  perhaps  be  to  press 
the  approximations  too  far.  There  will  still  remain  the  differ- 
ence, that  for  Aristotle  nature  has  its  own  value,  its  reality, 
while  for  the  Hindu  philosophers  it  is  only  a  spectre,  a  sport, 
and,  as  the  Vedautists  would  say,  an  illusion,  maya.  Thus 
there  will  always  be  grouLid  to  distinguish  between  the  realism 
of  Aristotle  and  the  Hindu  idealism ;  but  the  analogies 
we  have  noticed  are  nevertheless  very  striking. 


X. 

THE  PHYSICO-THEOLOGICAL  PROOF. 

(Book  n.  Chapter  i.) 

WE  shall  be  allowed  to  add  to  our  chapter  on  the  physico- 
theological  proof  two  interesting  notes  that  have  been 
addressed  to  us  by  two  very  distinguished  minds :  the  one  by 
M.  Mansion,  professor  of  Mathematics  in  the  University  of 
Ghent,  on  the  Epicurean  Argument ;  the  other  by  M.  Rabier, 
professor  in  the  Lyceum  Charlemagne,  on  the  Argument  of 
Kant.  The  first  of  these  notes  is  entirely  mathematical,  and 
concerns  the  application  of  the  calculation  of  probabilities  to 
the  formation  of  the  world ;  we  shall  rest  satisfied  with  re- 
producing, without  adding  anything  to  it.  The  second  is 
philosophical,  and  is  a  reply  to  our  own  discussion  on  the 
argument  of  Kant. 

I.  The  Epicurean  Argument  and  the  Calculation  of  Prohahilities. 

'  The  calculation  of  probabilities  cannot  serve  so  much  as 
might,  in  the  first  instance,  be  believed,  to  elucidate  the 
questions  raised  by  the  Epicurean  argument,  for  two  reasons, 
the  one  general,  the  other  special. 

'  The  general  reason  is  this :  In  mathematics  one  is  never 
occupied,  and  one  can  never  really  be  occupied,  with  an  infi- 
nite number ;  although  one  speaks  of  it  at  every  moment. 
The  phrases  where  this  term  infinite  occurs  are  concise,  and 
conventionally  take  the  place  of  longer  phrases.  Examples : 
1st,  "  Two  straight  lines  that  meet  in  the  infinite  form  with 
a  secant  internal  angles  whose  sum  is  equal  to  two  right 
angles,"  signifies :  "  Two  straight  lines  situated  in  the  same 
plane,  and  parallel,  form  7°."  2d,  "  A  fraction  ^  for  n  =  co 
(  00  represents  the  infinite)  is  nil,"  signifies :  "  If  n  increases 

510 


THE  PHYSICO-THEOLOGICAL  PROOF.  511 

indefinitely,  so  as  to  exceed  any  number  given  beforehand,  - 
will  become  as  little  as  you  please,  so  as  to  be  less  than  any 
fraction  given  beforehand,  however  small." 

^  This  mode  of  view  is  that  of  the  most  of  the  mathematicians 
of  our  days,  and  that  of  the  great  geometricians  of  the  17th 
century  (see  in  particular  Newton,  Principia,  scholia  of 
lemma  xi.  of  the  first  section  of  the  first  book).  In  the 
18th  century  the  most  celebrated  mathematicians,  on  the 
other  hand,  could  only  think  on  this  point  as  in  general  on  all 
the  questions  of  principles.  Hence  their  errors  and  embarrass- 
ments. Cauchy  in  France  and  Gauss  in  Germany  have 
restored  the  sound  doctrine. 

'  The  special  reason  is  derived  from  the  small  objective 
range  of  the  calculus  of  probabilities.  I  shall  explain  this  by 
particular  examples.  Given  a  gaming  die  with  six  faces,  it 
may  be  said,  in  two  different  senses,  that  the  probability  of 
the  occurrence  of  6,  for  instance,  is  i.  In  the  mathematical 
or  subjective  sense  that  merely  signifies  that  one  of  the  six 
faces  bears  the  number  6.  In  the  physical  or  objective  sense 
that  signifies  that  the  die  is  such  that  if  it  be  thrown  a  great 
number  of  times,  600  times  for  example,  the  6  occurs  about 
100  times.  If  the  die  were  loaded,  so  that  only  6  or  5  could 
be  thrown,  these  two  Qjccurring  besides  with  equal  ease,  that 
is,  each  of  them  about  300  times  in  600,  the  mathematical 
probability  of  the  occurrence  of  6  would  still  be  &,  but  the 
physical  probability  would  be  |  or  i. 

'  If  the  letters  of  the  first  verse  of  the  Iliad,  or,  if  j^ou  will, 
of  the  whole  Iliad,  can  form  n  different  combinations,  of  which 
one  is  the  poem  attributed  to  Homer,  it  may  be  said  that  the 
probability  of  the  occurrence  of  that  poem  is  -i  in  two  senses 
still.  In  the  subjective  sense,  that  simply  signifies  that  one 
of  the  imaginable  combinations  of  the  given  letters  is  the  Iliad. 
In  the  objective  sense,  it  means  that  these  letters  are  made  in 
such  manner,  obei/  such  latvs,  that  in  m  times  n  throws  of  all 
these  letters,  the  Iliad  occurs  about  m  times ;  m  is  a  very 
great  number  in  relation  to  w. 

'  The  pure  mathematicians  of  the  18th  and  19th  centuries 
have  scarcely  spoken  with  exactitude  of  these  two  sorts  of 
probability ;  but,  in  the  17th,  Jacques  Bernoulli,  and  in  our 
own  time  Cournot  and,  above  all,  Bienayme,  have  well  dis 
tinguished  objective  from  subjective  probability. 


512  APPENDIX. 

After  these  preliminaries  you  understand  that  the  Epi- 
curean argument  can  hardly  be  defended  or  attacked  by 
means  of  the  calculus  of  probabilities.  However,  this  last 
calculus  may  at  least  serve  to  give  precision  to  the  question. 

'  To  give  the  most  force  possible  to  the  Epicurean  argument, 
suppose  that  the  world  is  composed  of  a  finite  number  of 
atoms,  of  which  we  are  studying  the  possible  combinations, 
not  since  infinite  time,  which  would  bring  down  all  the 
mathematicians  upon  us,  but  from  an  indeterminate  time  (as  in 
your  note  on  p.  295).  That  indeterminate  time  is  as  long  as 
we  can  have  need  of  for  our  reasoning.  Let  us,  besides,  regard 
the  actual  world,  from  the  moment  when  men  have  thought 
they  saw  marks  of  design  in  it,  to  the  present,  as  an  immense 
Iliad.  Whether  the  previous  combinations  were  without 
order  or  not  matters  little  to  us.  If  there  are  iV combinations 
possible  in  all,  it  is  clear  that  the  mathematical  or  subjective 
probability  of  the  occurrence  of  the  actual  world  is  ~j.  But  it 
is  impossible  to  determine  whether  the  physical  or  objective 
probability  of  it  is  also  ^.  For  that  it  would  he  necessary  to 
show  that  there  are  in  the  atoms  immanent  forces  that  compel 
them  to  pass  m  times  through  the  n  possible  combinations^!  and  such 
that  the  actual  world  is  presented  about  m  times,  M  being  a 
number  very  great  in  relation  to  N.  A  priori,  one  knows 
nothing  of  such  immanent  forces,  and  consequently  the  Epi- 
curean argument  can  get  no  aid  from  the  calculus  of  proba- 
bilities. The  only  thing  that  one  knows  is  that  the  actual 
combination  is  one  of  the  possible  N,  since  it  is  realized,  or  that 
the  subjective  probability  is  ^  (which  is,  I  believe,  what  you 
say  in  substance,  p.  298).  Besides,  iVis  unknown,  and  the 
greater  the  Epicurean  supposes  it,  the  more  the  subjective 
possibility  of  the  world  diminishes,  as  you  say  p.  297. 

'  For  the  rest,  speaking  mathematically,  one  cannot  make  N 
infinite,  for  the  reason  given  above,  on  the  exclusion  of  the 
infinite  from  mathematics. 

'After  the  preceding  remarks,  one  may,  it  seems  to  me, 
leaving  aside  the  calculus  of  probabilities,  state  the  question 
as  follows  :  Are  there  in  the  atoms  immanent  forces  that  compel 
the  loorld  to  pass  m  times  through  n  different  combinations,  of 
which  one  is  the  actual  world?  Stated  thus,  and  resolved 
aflBrmatively,  the  Epicureans  would  not  yet  have  triumphed. 


THE   PHYSICO-THEOLOGICAL   PROOF.  513 

since  one  does  not  know  whether  the  (iV — 1)  other  combina- 
tions do  not  also  present  marks  of  design.' 


II.    On  the  Criticism  made  hy  Kant  of  the  Physico-Theological 

Proof. 

'  If  the  criticisms  of  Kant  are  just,'  M.  Rabier  writes  us, 
'  how  can  it  be  denied  that  they  are  useful  ?  All  the  world 
has  not  your  reserve,  only  to  demand  of  a  proof  what  it  can 
give.  How  many  times  has  this  argument  been  presented  as 
a  proof  of  the  existence  of  Qod^  that  is  to  say,  of  a  being 
infinite,  unique,  distinct  from  the  world,  etc.  Is  it  not  classed 
among  the  proofs  of  the  existence  of  God?  It  was  then 
important  to  say  precisely  what  this  proof  could  yield,  and 
to  make  restrictions  that  many  have  not  thought  to  make.' 

Rej)ly.  —  I  admit  this  observation.  No  doubt  the  criticism 
of  Kant  has  been  useful.  But  I  maintain  that  the  restrictions 
in  question  do  not  touch  the  foundation  of  the  argument, 
which,  to  my  knowledge,  has  never  been  employed  to  prove 
an  infinite^  creative.,  unique  being,  etc.,  but  simply  an  intelligent 
God.  It  sufficed  to  remark  that  the  argument  of  final  causes 
is  only  a  part  of  a  complete  demonstration  of  the  existence 
of  God,  as  Clarke,  for  example,  has  shown,  who,  in  place  of 
stating  separate  and  incomplete  proofs,  presents  them  as  the 
successive  propositions  of  one  and  the  same  demonstration. 
Even  taken  separately,  the  proof  of  final  causes  can  lead  to 
an  incomplete  God,  but  still  to  a  God.  One  is  not  an  atheist 
for  not  admitting  the  creation,  nor  yet  for  admitting  several 
gods,  as  Socrates  and  Plato  do  when  they  speak  like  the 
vulgar. 

But  let  us  leave  these  preliminary  observations  and  go  to 
the  root  of  the  argument. 

'Are  the  criticisms  of  Kant  just?'  proceeds  M.  Rabier. 
'The  first  two  are:  1.  The  argument  does  not  give  a  creator 
God ;   2.  The  argument  does  not  give  an  infinite  intelligence. 

'You  think  these  two  objections  destroy  each  other.  If 
that  were  so,  it  would  not  follow,  you  acknowledge,  that 
neither  the  one  nor  the  other  is  just.  But  is  it  quite  sure 
that  they  destroy  each  other? 


514  APPENDIX. 

'1.  Does  the  first  destroy  the  second?  In  other  words,  if 
God  is  only  the  arcliitect  of  the  world,  cannot  He  still  be  not 
infinite  ? 

'  Here  is  your  reasoning,  with  my  objections  within  paren- 
theses. 

'  To  say  that  God  is  only  architect,  is  to  say  that  the  mat- 
ter of  the  world  is  necessary.  (That  is  true.)  But  if  the 
matter  is  necessary,  the  cause  of  the  form  is  so  also.  (The 
consequence  seems  to  me  impossible  to  demonstrate.)  In 
effect:  («)  How  could  a  contingent  cause  act  on  a  necessary 
matter?  (Why  not?  Let  us  suppose  Epicureanism  true, 
what  impossibility  is  there  that  man  should  act  on  matter?) 
(5)  Where  would  this  cause  have  derived  the  reason  of  its 
existence  ?  In  matter  ?  (This  is  not  manifestly  impossible  ; 
the  materialism  according  to  which  intelligence  proceeds  from 
matter  is  not  evidently  absurd,  since  it  is.)  (c)  Would  a 
cause  coming  from  matter  be  able  to  react  upon  matter  ?  (It 
seems  to  me  it  would ;  the  effect  often  rests  upon  the  cause, 
like  the  word  on  the  thought.)  Then  that  cause  exists  of 
itself.  (That  is  not  proved,  as  it  seems,  but  let  us  admit 
it.)  It  is  then  absolute.  (Yes ;  but  the  absolute  here  only 
concerns  the  being,  not  the  modes  of  being.)  ' 

Reply.  —  Let  us  pause  here,  for  we  are  entering  into  an- 
other order  of  difficulties.  Up  to  this  point  the  author  of 
the  objections  only  disputes  that  the  first  cause  is  a  necessary 
cause,  a  cause  by  itself.  He  only  consents  to  it  at  the  end  by 
way  of  concession,  and  to  push  the  objection  further ;  other- 
wise it  does  not  appear  to  him  impossible  that  a  contingent 
cause  should  act  on  necessary  matter.  He  cites  man,  who, 
according  to  Epicureanism,  can  act  on  matter,  all  contingent 
as  he  is,  and  proceeding  entirely  from  it.  But  the  question 
here  is  not  of  a  partial  and  isolated  action  on  some  points  of 
matter,  which  is  only  one  of  the  particular  cases  of  the  respec- 
tive reaction  of  the  molecules  upon  each  other.  It  concerns 
an  action  upon  all  matter,  an  action  that  changes  the  chaos 
into  cosmos.  But  a  system  that  would  admit  that  matter  is 
capable  of  producing  such  a  cause  could  quite  as  well  dispense 
with  it,  for  it  would  be  much  more  simple  to  admit  that 
matter  produces  order  directly  by  the  mixture  and  accommo- 
dation of  the  parts.     But  those  who  allow  an  architect  God 


THE   PHYSICO-THEOLOGICAL  PROOF.  5l5 

do  nut  admit  that  matter  can  prodnce  order ;  a  fortiori,  they 
will  not  admit  that  it  can  produce  an  ordaining  cause. 

Nevertheless,  one  would  not  yet  have  gained  anything,  it 
appears,  by  admitting  that  the  organizing  cause  is  a  cause  by 
itself.  For,  says  our  critic,  '  the  absolute  here  only  concerns 
the  being,  not  the  modes  of  being.'  He  then  goes  on  con- 
tinuing to  sum  us  up,  and  adding  within  parentheses  his  own 
objections. 

'  The  second  objection  of  Kant  (and  it  is  in  that  that  it 
would  be  destroyed  by  the  first)  disputes  that  there  is  in  this 
contingent  world  enough  of  material  to  rise  to  the  notion  of 
the  absolute.  (It  seems  to  me  that  the  objection  of  Kant  is 
not  precisely  that ;  it  does  not  rest  on  the  contingency  of  the 
form  or  of  the  matter.  The  objection  is :  We  do  not  know 
whether  the  art  that  shines  in  the  world  is  infinite,  and  conse- 
quently whether  it  necessitates  an  infinite  intelligence.  The 
question  is  of  the  degree,  and  not  of  the  contingency  or  non- 
contingency  of  the  world.)  Then  this  second  objection  is 
destroyed  by  the  first.  (I  do  not  believe  it,  and  it  seems  to 
me  that  it  is  the  double  sense  of  the  word  absolute  that 
deceives.  The  absolute  implied,  according  to  us,  in  the  first 
objection,  is  the  absolute  of  existence,  the  necessary,  the  uncon- 
ditional, awiroOtTov,  lkovov.  The  absolutc  contested  by  Kant 
in  the  second  objection  is  the  absolute  of  quality,  the  finished, 
the  perfect,  reAetov.  Until  it  be  proved  that  the  first  of  these 
absolutes  involves  the  second,  in  other  words,  that  the  neces- 
sary is  necessarily  perfect,  I  do  not  see  a  contradiction. 
Remark,  besides,  that  you  yourself  reason  against  Kant  by 
admitting  a  necessary  mode,  that  is,  an  absolute  of  existence 
which  is  not  an  absolute  of  quality.)' 

Reply.  —  I  grant  to  the  critic  that  the  absolute  of  existence 
(the  necessary)  is  not  the  same  thing  as  the  absolute  of  quality 
(the  perfect),  and  that  one  has  not  the  right  (at  least  at  first 
sight)  to  conclude  from  the  one  to  the  other.  Nor  do  I  do  so. 
What  I  maintain  is,  that  the  absolute  being  given  me  on  the 
one  hand,  and  intelligence  being  given  me  on  the  other,  I  have 
the  right  to  conclude  an  absolute  of  intelligence.  If  I  did 
not  know  otherwise  that  God  is  intelligent,  I  would  not  learn 
it  b}'  consulting  the  notion  of  the  absolute.  But  this  notion 
being  posited,  it  follows,  according  to  me,  that  every  attri- 


616  APPENDIX. 

bute  that  shall  be  recognised  in  God  will  be  so  in  quality  of 
absolute ;  for  the  absolute  being  His  essence,  He  must  be 
absolute  in  all  that  He  is.  To  employ  the  paradoxical  form 
that  Descartes  has  given  to  this  argument,  we  shall  say  with 
him  that  if  God  can  have  given  Himself  the  greatest  of  per- 
fections, which  is  to  exist,  He  must  have  given  Himself  at  the 
same  time  all  the  perfection  of  which  He  is  susceptible.  But 
He  is  intelligent ;  therefore  He  must  have  given  Himself  the 
highest  degree  of  intelligence  possible,  that  is,  an  absolute  of 
intelligence.  Cut  off  from  this  Cartesian  argument  the  sin- 
gular idea  of  a  God  who  creates  Himself,  and  there  remains 
a  very  solid  foundation,  namely,  that  the  absolute  of  exist- 
ence implies  the  absolute  of  essence  and  the  absolute  of  each 
attribute. 

'  2.  Inversely,  the  second  objection  destroys  the  first.^  The 
world  is  contingent,  says  Kant  in  his  second  objection  ;  there- 
fore one  must  only  infer  a  contingent  cause.  (I  admit  that 
that  is  the  objection.)  But  if  the  world  is  contingent,  it  must 
be  so  entirely,  creation  and  form ;  for  what  right  would  one 
have  to  conclude  from  the  contingency  of  the  form  the 
necessity  of  the  matter  ?  (It  is  certain  that  one  cannot  con- 
clude from  the  contingency  of  the  form  the  necessity  of  the 
matter ;  but  no  more  is  it  permissible  to  conclude  from  the 
contingency  of  the  form  the  contingency  of  the  matter.  The 
form  being  contingent,  the  question  whether  the  matter  is 
contingent  or  not  remains  doubtful.  If  this  remark  is  just, 
the  whole  sequel  of  the  reasoning  does  not  apply.)' 

I  grant  the  objection ;  and,  in  consequence,  the  passage  in 
question  has  been  withdrawn. 

The  result  of  that  is  that  what  subsists,  according  to  us, 
in  our  criticism  of  Kant,  is  that  the  proof  of  final  causes 
may  well,  it  is  true,  infer  only  an  architect  God,  but  that 
the  architect  God  must  enjoy  a  perfect  wisdom  as  well  as 
the  creator  God. 

1  That  which  we  maintained  in  the  first  edition,  and  which  we  withdraw 
after  the  present  objection. 


INDEX. 


Actions,   instinctive   and   voluntary, 

104. 
Adaptations,  liurtful,  154. 
Agassiz  on  types,  212. 
Alphabet,  chance  throw  of  letters  of, 

18G. 
Ampere  on  the  final  cause  of  bodies, 

192. 
Analogy,  worth  of  reasoning  by,  112. 
Animals,  two  kinds  of  actions  of,  101. 
Apparatus,  respiratory,  78. 
Arago  on  groups  of  stars,  23. 
Archetyjies,  Platonic,  392. 
Aristotle  — 
On  chance,  19. 
The  final  cause  explained  by,  1,  5, 

9,38. 
Disputes  final  causes,  476. 
Automatism,  the  Cartesian,  180. 

Beattie,  anecdote  of,  292. 
Bennett,  Alfred  "W.,  on  natural  selec- 
tion, 249. 
Bernard,  Claude  — 

Quoted,  52. 

On  digestion,  76. 

On  physiology,  118. 

On  the  heart,  129. 

On  physiology  and  zoology,  130. 

On  the  life  of  the  organism,  133. 

Recognises  a  directive  idea,  136. 

On  life,  230. 
Bichat  on  tissues,  118. 
Blainville  against  Cuvier,  435. 
Bossuet  on  mechanism,  185, 
Brain,  the,  and  chance,  187. 
Buffon  and  Clairaut,  204. 

Cabanis  on  final  causes,  455. 
Causality  and  finality  — 

Compared,  5. 

Ravaisson  on,  8. 


Cause  and  effect,  17. 
Chance  — 

Games  of,  18. 

Cournot  on,  19. 
Chances,  happy,  141. 
Coincidences,  20,  26,  28,  40,  42,  294. 

Examples  of,  21,  22. 
Concordance,  principle  of,  60. 
Conditions  of  existence,  principle  o^ 

137. 
Conflict  of  final  and  efficient  causes, 

166. 
Copernicus,  203. 
Corneille  quoted,  363. 
Correlations,  law  of  organic,  47. 
Creation,  408. 

Hypotheses  of,  415. 
Creations,  hypothesis  of  special,  227. 
Crystallization,  198. 
Cuvier  and  G.  St.  Hilaire,  449. 

On  comparative  anatomy,  48. 

Daravin  — 
On  natural  selection  and  origin  oi 

species,  241. 
On  instinct,  255. 
Descartes  on  creation,  220. 
Duhamel  on  analysis  and  synthesis 
35. 

Entropht,  196. 

Epicurean  argument,  reply  to,  298. 

Epigenesis,  doctrine  of,  138. 

Epiglottis,  the,  76. 

Evil,  problem  of,  168,  420. 

Evolution  — 

Defined,  215 

Leibnitz  the  true  founder  of,  219. 

Does  not  explain  the  universe,  231* 

Rests  on  a  true  principle,  260. 

Two  meanings  of,  282. 


617 


518 


INDEX. 


Exemplarism,  hypothesis  of,  402. 
Eye,  the  — 

And  sight,  an  illustration  of  means 
and  end,  40. 

And  the  camera,  67,  109. 

The  crystalline  humour  of,  69. 

The  achromatism  of,  72. 

Faith  and  Knowledge,  288. 
Fenelon  —    ,  /   ; 

Reply   of,  to   Epicurean   objection, 
296. 

On  the  animal  machine,  331. 
Final  cause,  or  finality  — 

Defined,  3. 

Is  there  a  principle  of  ?  4. 

Th.  Jouffroy's  definition  of,  5. 

Is  a  law  of  nature,  9. 

Formulated  by  Reid,  11;  by  Bossuet, 
12. 

Inferred  from  tools,  31. 

Illustrated    by    digestion,    32;    by 
lactation,  33. 

John  Stuart  Mill  on,  33. 

Criterion  of,  39. 

Idea  of,  extended  from  ourselves  to 
others,  98. 
Final  causes  — 

Not  miracles,  126. 

Require  physical  causes,  128. 

Abuses  of,  491. 

Final  problem  of,  414. 
Finality  — 

External  and  internal,  192,  332. 

Of  use  and  of  plan,  211. 

Esthetical,  213. 

Subjective  and  objective,  318. 

And  induction,  432 
Flourens  on  respiration,  49. 
Foresight,  itlea  of,  examined,  380. 
Fortlage  — 

Against  intentionalism,  353. 

Reply  to,  358. 
Frauenstadt  on  unconscious  finality, 
347. 

Germs  of  Animals,  growth  of,  51,  137. 
God  is  wisdom,  power,  and  love,  410. 

Habit,  179. 
JEartmann  — 

Analysis  by,  of  final  causes,  2. 


Calculation  of  probability  by,  40. 

On  finality,  352. 
Havet,  M.  Ernest,  letter  of,  44. 
Hearing,  organ  of,  73. 
Heart,  structure  of  the,  77. 
Hpiik  d  on  differentiation,  142. 
Hegel  — 

Doctrine  of,  on  final  causes,  334. 

On  unconscious  finality,  346. 

On  truth,  392. 
Hegelians,  objection  of,  342. 
Helmholtz  on  the  eye,  46. 
Holbach,  Baron  d',  scene  In  hia  draw- 
ing-room, 293. 
Huxley  on  Kant  and  Schwann's  cellu- 
lar theory,  48. 

Idea,  the,  of  Plato  and  Hegel,  318. 
Incubation,  43,  106. 
Inductions  true  and  false,  430. 
Industry  of  man  and  vital  industry, 

107. 
Instincts,  the,  81, 

Milne-Edwards  on,  81. 

Re'aumur  on,  81. 

Reimar  on,  82. 

Preservative  of  individuals,  83  ;  of 
species,  87. 

Of  society,  90. 

And  functions,  105. 
Intention,  analysis  of,  367. 

Kant  on  the  physico-theological  proof, 
301. 

Objections  of,  to  final  causes,  302. 

Regards  linality  as  subjective,  316. 

His  doctrine  of  finality  summed  up, 
320. 

On  immanent  finality,  330. 

On  supreme  end  of  universe,  424. 

On  earthquake  of  Lisbon,  464. 
Kepler,  anecdote  of,  292. 

Lachelier  — 

On  the  harmony  of   the  elements, 
207. 

On  the  laws  of  motion,  209. 

On  subjectivist  finalism,  325. 

Against  intelligent  finality,  307. 

Correction  by,  385. 

On  the  problem  of  induction,  427. 
Lamarck  on  transformism,  232. 


J 


INDEX. 


619 


Laplace  on  the  solar  system,  23,  1712. 

Nebular  hypothesis  of,  201. 
Law  of  division  of  labour,  134. 
Leibnitz  — 

On  physical  and  final  causes,  128. 

On  automata,  183. 

And  Clarke,  221. 

On  the  end  of  creation,  423. 
Lisbon,  the  earthquake  of,  461. 
Littre  on  final  causes,  218,  454. 
Lucretius  quoted,  474. 

]Malebkakche  on  the  end  of  creation, 

419. 
Man  not  opposed   to,   but  a   part  of 

nature,  94. 
Mansion,  M.,  on  Epicurean  ar^ment, 

510. 
Mechanism  defined,  172. 

Excludes  every  kind  of  finality,  179. 

And  the  intelligent  being,  184. 
Mill,  John  Stuart,  on  Positivism  and 

final  causes,  454. 
Moleciales,  sensation  in,  189. 
Moleschott  on   the  human   machine, 

130. 
Moliere  quoted,  291. 

Misanthrope  of,  365. 
Monsters,  57,  140, 161. 

Dareste  on,  1G3. 
Miiller  — 

On  locomotion  of  animals,  45. 

On  vision,  64. 

On  hearing,  74. 

On  organs  of  motion,  79. 

On  vocal  organs,  80. 

On  germs,  137. 

Naturk,  forces  of,  188. 

Compared  to  a  dancer,  507. 
Naudin  defends  abrupt  transformism, 

261. 
Nerve-cells,  structure  and  functions  of, 

132. 
Newton  and  the  solar  system,  197,  205. 

Objections  — 
Of  Bacon,  479. 
Of  Caro,  95. 
Of  Descartes,  482. 
Of  the  Epicureans,  474. 
Of  Maupertuis,  55. 


Of  Spinoza,  484. 

Positivist,  454. 

Of  naturalists,  146. 

Of  Vulpian,  160. 
Organism,  the,  224. 
Organs  and  functions,  62, 117. 
Organs,  reproduction  of,  110. 

Adaptation  of,  to  functions,  175. 
Organs,  formation  of,  176. 

Useless,  149. 

Rudimentary,  151. 

Paley  on  the  solar  system,  173. 
Physico-theology,  treatises  on,  62. 
Physiology,  ancient  and  modern,  117, 

122. 
Polymorphism,  259. 
Pope's  essay  on  man  quoted,  460. 
Preformation,  hypothesis  of,  139. 
Properties  of  life,  the  essential,  121. 

Quatkefages  on  origin  of  varieties, 
249. 

Rabiee,  M.,  on  Kant's  argument,  513. 
Ravaisson's    hypothesis    of    creation, 

416. 
Reid  on  theory  of  ideas,  402. 
Robin  on  the  organism,  119. 
On  adaptation  of  organ  to  function, 
141. 
Rousseau  on  the  cause  of  evil,  468. 

St.  Hilaire,  Geoffroy,  on  anatomical 

elements,  123. 
Sankhya  and  Aristotle,  508. 
Schopenhauer  on  unconscious  finality, 
348. 
On  predominance  of  pain,  422. 
Science  and  philosophy,  123. 
Scientists  and  final  causes,  10. 
Scott's  Old  Mortality  quoted,  493. 
Segregation,  law  of,  272. 
Sexes,  existence  and  organs  of,  52. 
Soul,  the,  in  the  Hindu  philosophy, 

505. 
Spencer,  Herbert  — 
Against  final  causes,  220. 
On  creation,  223. 
His  doctrine  of  evolution  examined, 

264. 
And  found  reducible  to  chance,  282. 


520 


INDEX. 


Strauss,    Dr.,   on    immanent   finality, 

329. 
Strauss-Durkeim  on  the  flight  of  birds, 

36. 
Symmetry,  four  kinds  of,  in  animals, 

211. 

Teeth,  shape  of  the,  75. 
Teleology  of  Lesage,  444. 
Theology,  finite,  338. 
Thought  in  the  universe,  how  recog- 
nised, 125. 
Transcendence  and  immanence,  336. 
Trendelenburg  — 

On  the  eye  and  light,  44. 

On  Kant,  323. 


Truth,  the  search  for,  407. 

Types,  chemical  and  zoological,  174. 

Ubags  on  end  and  motive,  440. 
Unknowable,  region  of  the,  413. 

Valves,  the,  of  the  veins,  76. 
Verities  and  essences,  404. 
Vision,  two  systems  of,  65. 
Voltaire  on  earthquake  of  Lisbon,  462. 

Waddington  on  the  problem  of  in- 
duction, 427. 
"World,  the,  tor  wlat  end  created,  414 


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